one of the younger singers/actresses was getting it over going there
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/people-calling-olivia-rodrigo-vacationing-192019251.h
But apparently many others have been getting the same reaction I know we have a few dopers living there so I wanted top see what the local thoughts were
This “story” seems to be based on nothing but nutpicking from social media comments.
link doesn’t work for me - it says the page doesn’t exist.
There’s a “tml” missing from the end of the link:
Having lived in a tourist area (Door County, WI), locals tend to have a love/hate relationship with tourists. They bring in money, but they also bring in traffic,property value inflation, and similar issues. – for example you have to build water treatment plants to handle the holiday crowds.
Brian
I’d like to see a news story about news organizations so desperate for clicks that their stories consist of nothing more than culling a bunch of social media comments and headlining it “Celebrity/Politician X Roasted For Comments about Y”.
Fox News has one or more stories like this on its website daily.
Most of whom don’t seem to actually be from Hawaii.
Part of it is related to buying up and driving up real estate prices. Though that’s ordinarily for stratospheric properties/valuations - it pulls everything else up too. Not very good press/relations from two of the biggest owners. Larry Ellison (Oracle) owns an entire island (Lanai) - many of local workers come over by ferry - the resorts there are priced out of this world for ordinary folks. Zuckerberg (Meta/facebook) owns a few thousand acres and pushed out some of the locals who had small parcels interspaced in HIS fiefdom. Not a real respect the locals/culture kind of guy.
On the other hand, Hawaii 5-O and Magnum PI celebs were/are looked kindly on.
Regardless of the poor quality of the “story” provided, I’m interested in whether the background is a real story. The OP requested feedback from Hawai’an locals* and I would also like to hear: what is your attitude towards visitors** and the industry around them? Full disclosure: I am a mainlander who has visited Hawai’i maybe 15 times in the past 40 years.
*Locals should probably include non-native Hawai’ians, if their families have been there for a while, I suppose.
** “Visitor” seems to be the term preferred (possibly by the industry) over “tourist”, at least that is the term I have heard used a lot.
I am only malihini (not born and raised in Hawai’i) but I’ve been spending significant amounts of time on the island of Hawai’i since 2002, and I moved here permanently in 2018. Plus, I work at a cultural center - which has disappointingly limited Native Hawaiian participation, though not for lack of trying. Still, my work has given me the opportunity to talk in-depth from time to time with various Native Hawaiians about issues of identity, opportunity, redressing past injustices, and where Hawai’i should aspire to go in the future.
Like any complex social issue, the OP’s question doesn’t have a simple answer. I would characterize the majority of Native Hawaiians as being well aware of, and unhappy about, the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the subsequent cultural, economic, and other forms of damage done to local communities.
There isn’t one well united separatist movement, however. There are various different groups (typically aligned by family connections) with different positions. Take the protests against the TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope) on Mauna Kea. Yes, there have been very visible long-term protests on the mountain, supported by indigenous organizations from around the world. However, while they may be less vocal, there are plenty of Hawaiians who support TMT.
Also, the “pure” Native Hawaiians are limited in number. A lot of people are mixed race, and an ongoing question is what the minimum portion of Native Hawaiian ancestry you must have to quality for homestead lands.
With that as a very brief intro to a really complicated situation, I would say that most Native Hawaiians support responsible, managed tourism (which means fewer tourists who behave responsibly and consume fewer resources), complemented by state-supported attempts to diversify the state’s economic base. A lot of jobs rely on tourism, and it’s hard to see what could replace it as the primary economic driver, given the islands’ remote location. One industry that seemingly shows promise is alternative energy. Certainly there is a movement to make Hawai’i a leader in R&D for sustainable solar, wind, and ocean thermal energy conversion.
@smithsb is also correct about the crazy real estate prices and resentment against rich outsiders buying up all the land. I think that is especially a problem on Maui, but it’s true pretty much everywhere - there is a significant shortage of affordable housing. (The news at the moment is filled with discussion of an emergency order by Gov. Josh Green that will cut through some of the red tape/environmental rules to speed the development of new housing. Not everyone is happy about that, fearing the possible loss of habitat for endemic species and other concerns.) That’s not precisely the same issue as tourism, but in terms of how people view outsiders and how they would like to see Hawaii’s future, it is related.
I found a related article. The first thing I noticed was the actress, who was using her vacation purely as a photo-op, for self-promotion. Using the location as a backdrop for her own ego. Ho hum
As an actor, self-promotion is an important part of her job. I would say it’s less her ego and more of a working vacation.
It’s literally just someone posting pictures of themself on vacation. Something that 99% of people on vacation do, celebrity or not.
It might be a good place for R&D, but it’s not a good place for production, because after you produce the energy, what then? There’s no cheap way to get it anywhere. And for that matter, it might not even be a good place for R&D, because you need to do that under the same conditions as will be present for the actual production.
Any Hawaiian industry must be for something that’s either very easy to transport, or for which the prices are so high that the transportation costs are a small part of it. The Mauna Loa telescopes are in the first category: Data is cheap to move. Tourism is in the second: People are willing to pay a lot for a tropical vacation.
Any industry must also be something that you need solid land for (or else you’d just put it on a floating platform nowhere in particular), but not very much land.
It’s tough to come up with anything to replace tourism.
Convert it to green hydrogen or ammonia, and open a refuelling station.
I know of one IT company that’s Native Hawaiian owned. I think they do a lot of work with DoD and the US Government, and have a data center in Hawaii. Hawaii might be a good place for underwater data centers, with local support jobs. Lots of assumptions and problems between me tossing off those ideas, and making them a real economic benefit, but it’s a thought. It’s hard to make up for tourist dollars.
So… what every regular person on vacation does?
That assertion makes no sense to me. Tourism creates jobs for the natives. How would having no tourists benefit the natives? It wouldn’t change the fact that wealthy people own most of the fantastically high priced real estate.
The deep problem for any “native” culture anywhere is that it comes from a low population density state of near economic stasis. Subsistence farming / gathering / hunting and a few locally traded handicrafts is about it.
That cannot intersect with industrial modernity without being overwhelmed population wise 1,000 to 1 and financially 10,000 or 100,000 to 1.
Wreckage of the native culture & society is all but guaranteed at those exchange ratios. They can continue to exist as something approaching a zoo exhibit, or they can fully embrace joining modernity in all its ghastly trappings. But still as a statistically insignificant minority on their own homelands.
A middle way is hard to find.
I, and many others, wish there was a better answer. But it’s hard bordering on impossible, to come up with one.
It’s not just Hawaiians asking people to stay away, Fodor’s No List 2023 tags Maui as a place not to visit…
This past summer, Maui County placed mandatory water restrictions on the residents of West Maui and Upcountry communities with a hefty fine of $500 for non-essential water use, such as irrigation, watering lawns, and washing cars in order to combat dry conditions and high temperatures. However, while everyone on the islands of Maui is asked to conserve water, no such limitations were placed on resorts in South and Central Maui, many of which boast pools, sprawling lawns, and golf courses. As travel returns to pre-pandemic levels–about 8,000 travelers per day to Maui–the disparity in water distribution is leading to conflicts between the hospitality industry and household users.
Many Native Hawaiians, frustrated about bearing the burden of limiting water use to accommodate tourism, are urging travelers to avoid coming to the islands out of respect for its inhabitants. Former Hawaii State Representative and Native Hawaiian, Kaniela Ing, posted to Twitter last year: “Stop coming to Hawaii. They are treating us like second-class citizens, literally cutting off our water to feed over-tourism.”