![]() ![]() In the 1920s, the wealthy and powerful Walter Dillingham bought 230 acres of land in Waikiki and helped push through a plan to develop the area into the “Venice of the Pacific” by constructing the Ala Wai Canal. Regular steamship service to the West Coast helped grow a small but steady flow of travelers. The Moana Hotel opened in Waikiki in 1901. Tourism grew slowly but steadily in the early 20th century. The idea was that white tourists would come to Hawaii from the United States, see what a wonderful place Hawaii was and decide to stay, he says. Tourism was viewed as a way to attract more white people to Hawaii and change the ethnic makeup of the islands, Mak says. Hawaii’s sugar plantations were drawing heavily on workers from China and Japan, and the white business owners who had only recently overthrown the Hawaiian monarchy, were concerned that the islands were becoming too Asian. ![]() The Moana Hotel, which opened in 1901, was Waikiki’s first luxury hotel. There was also a more sinister reason for developing tourism, says James Mak, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Hawaii who has written extensively about the history of tourism in Hawaii. The bureau was short-lived, but a decade later many of those same power brokers established the Hawaii Promotion Committee, this time with financial backing from the territorial government to pay for offices and magazine advertisements abroad.Īt the time, Hawaii’s economy was dominated by the sugar industry and - a bit ironically in hindsight - tourism was seen as a way to diversify the economy. The first real efforts to create a tourism industry date back to 1892, when a group of business owners - some of whom were involved in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom a year later - formed the Hawaiian Bureau of Information. But the development of the tourism industry was the result of decades of concerted efforts to attract travelers to the Pacific - and outside forces that aligned at just the right time to market Hawaii when jumbo jets were beginning to make long-distance travel affordable to the masses. With Hawaii’s breathtaking scenery and year-round temperate climate, its success as a tourist destination might seem predestined. The challenge is having the political will to make those changes. There are ways to improve life for residents and stimulate business growth that aren’t tied to tourist dollars, says economist Sumner La Croix. The solution to Hawaii’s tourism dilemma might be found in the desire of residents like Kahapea-Tanner to hold on to what made Hawaii so appealing to tourists to begin with. The pandemic is forcing Hawaii to rethink its approach to tourism, and it offers the opportunity to change the status quo. That doesn’t mean efforts to change are doomed today, say some historians and economists. Attempts since the 1970s to wean Hawaii off its dependence on visitors have mostly fallen flat. Tourism was initially meant to diversify Hawaii’s economy. Businesses are closing.īut there’s also a widespread sense that tourism before the pandemic wasn’t working for Hawaii the way it should. David Ige is proposing furloughs on government workers for years to come. The state has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Tourists need to return or Hawaii is financially doomed. “The local community has been able to be down there, to breathe down there, now it’s like we are going to be forced back out.” “There’s also some sadness,” said Bonnie Kahapea-Tanner, who has been surfing with her children and several other families every week in Waikiki since May. Local families - many of whom had previously steered clear of Waikiki - took advantage of the lull in tourism over the summer to reclaim the popular tourist beaches. ![]() There’s anxiety about what will happen if tourists don’t come back - and what will happen if they do. Now, as the state tries to restart tourism by launching a pre-travel testing program on Thursday, many locals worry about what will come next. Along the shore, in sight of the pink hotel that Joni Mitchell immortalized with the lyrics, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” local families lounged on the sand, took their kids surfing and fished by the dozens. Nowhere was the change more striking than in Waikiki, a neighborhood synonymous with hordes of tourists. Traffic on the road to Hana felt more like it did in the 1970s. Monk seals and large fish started returning to the clearer waters of Hanauma Bay. Suddenly there was no line at Matsumoto Shave Ice in Haleiwa. For 13 bittersweet weeks - in between Hawaii’s first stay-at-home order and the dramatic spike of coronavirus cases that sent Oahu into a second lockdown - people got to see what the Aloha State was like without tourists. ![]() This summer, in the midst of all the doom and gloom of the pandemic, something remarkable happened in Hawaii. ![]()
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