A recent survey found that most Hawaiians are happy that tourism is rebounding after more than a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, but their enthusiasm has limits.
Respondents said two-to-one that government "should control or regulate tourism more than other businesses" with about 80% "strongly" or "somewhat" favoring regulation of tourism operations in public parks. Those respondents also favored "strict green-energy requirements" in resort areas and testing tourism businesses "for accuracy of cultural/historical information."
The survey, conducted by Anthology Research, was issued Wednesday, June 2, by the University of Hawaii Public Policy Center. About 700 Hawaii residents responded to Anthology Research's survey conducted between April 16 and May 3.
"The big lesson here is that people want the state to be directly involved in managing tourism," Colin Moore, director of the University of Hawaii Public Policy Center, told the Star-Advertiser. "It's not that there is a tremendous amount of love for the state. But I don't think people trust the industry to manage itself regarding a lot of ideas that seem like they have a lot of public support, including hot-spot management, increasing fees for tourists to pay for a lot of things and support for a state agency that would manage tourism."
Among other things, 70% of survey respondents want vaccination requirements for travelers who are coming into the state, and almost half want the state "to focus equally on tourism recovery and economic diversification this year." Almost 60% rated the state's performance limiting the COVID-19 threat from visitors as "fairly bad" or just "bad."
Those negative responses about Hawaii's tourism industry reveal the state's long love-hate relationship with the industry.
"Hawaii residents have long had a complicated relationship with the visitor industry," the survey's executive summary said. "Although tourism generates tax revenue and jobs, there are longstanding concerns about the impact on Hawaii's natural resources and day-to-day quality of life."
Those concerns "reached a crescendo" in 2019 when a record 10 million people visited the islands, and then the COVID-19 pandemic began, essentially shutting down tourism in Hawaii.
"Many residents faced job losses and extreme financial stress, but others were relieved to visit their favorite beaches and trails without fighting traffic and crowds," the executive summary said. "For some, the statewide shutdown of tourism presented an opportunity to imagine new ways to govern the state’s primary industry."
Industry powers-that-be should imagine those new ways going forward, recognizing that "sound destination management strategy is essential to sustain" the state's tourism industry, and listen to concerns about that industry expressed by Hawaiians.
"We recommend that any future efforts to restructure tourism governance take time to include widespread stakeholder input and careful studies of how other destination management organizations and governments are managing tourism," the survey's recommendations said. "We also urge those studies, such as tourism competition analyses and national/international destination image surveys, be more widely shared with, and written for, the local public."