Hawai'i was hit extremely hard by the shutdowns because of the pandemic, as a huge part of its revenue was taken away from the tourism industry as no one was allowed to travel.
University of Hawai'i at Hilo Assistant Professor Angela Faʻanunu believes it is time for Hawai'i to think about new, innovated strategies to develop a sustainable tourism and business for the islands.
“COVID has created an awareness that perhaps the model we have for tourism isn’t the best one for our small islands. Perhaps we need to find other ways of engaging with the visitor industry that build the resilience of our local communities, such as our local farmers,” Faʻanunu said in a University of Hawai'i news release.
Fu'anunu said that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the islands that tourism is just one strategy for Hawai'i to make money and bring in revenue.
“Tourism is just one of these strategies, but tourism has become such a prevalent strategy that it has overpowered everything else. COVID has shown us that perhaps we need to figure out those other strategies to make us more resilient," Fu'anunu said as stated in the press release.
Fu'anunu teaches in her class that a more regenerative model for tourism centered around agri-tourism and indigenous tourism may be a better model for the islands to follow to create a sustainable tourism industry.
“To me, agri-tourism is a win-win situation but to develop this industry in Hawaiʻi, we need to plan carefully. Allowing commercial activity on agricultural lands can be tricky so we need to ensure that they are protected and that we maintain the integrity and sense of place of our local communities while also enabling small farmers to succeed by being financially sustainable," Fa'anunu said.
As part of Fu'anunu's own initiative to help the agri-tourism industry and give expertise in the field, she is a co-founder of Kaivao Farms in Pāhoehoe, just north of Hilo. She said the vision of the farm is to cultivate Pacific resilience.
Kaivao Farm won $20,000 in seed money as the first-place winner of the 2016 Mahiʻai Match-Up Agricultural Business Plan Contest, sponsored by Kamehameha Schools and the Pauahi Foundation. The farm then received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop agri-tourism for Hawaiʻi county.
This further led to the development of a Hawaiʻi Farm Trails mobile app. The app serves as a platform to connect visitors and residents to agricultural activities including farm tours, farmer’s markets, agricultural festivals and events, while also bringing in revenue to those places and small businesses.
“We really learned how important tourism is for small farms,” Faʻanunu said.