Let’s Talk Tourism In Hawaii 2021

Pulled from the headlines! We discuss the issues around tourism in Hawaii coming off an intense year of the slingshot affect of folks deciding to travel to the Hawaiian Islands in droves in 2021 AND what is happening in Kailua Kona after the Governor asked visitors to hold off on travel through the end of October so we could get a handle on our COVID cases.

Here are some resources we used to discuss this topic:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hawaii-covid-travel-tourism-11631828751
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/21/hawaii-tourism-industry-after-covid

https://www.hawaiitourismauthority.org/media/4286/hta-strategic-plan-2020-2025.pdf

Eric and Julie Ziemelis are lifestyle bloggers/vloggers and share their insight, thoughts and perspective about living on Hawaii Island.

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Comments from the YouTube Community 

As we look at what happened to this video after publishing it a day ago, we have already received MANY comments from people discussing the issue of tourism.

If you plan on moving to Hawaii, knowing these issues exist is important, as in one way or another, it will affect you.

Here are a few:

Interesting question. How do we get fewer people to come to Hawaii. Then extract as much money from them as possible while they are here? I know! Let’s restrict them to tourist zones so the locals don’t have to put up with the stupid haolies, unless they want to extract money from them. I’ve lived though the ebb and flow of tourism on the big island and it is much better when it flows. When situations like 9-11 and now covid happen, Hawaiians leave the islands looking for work. Making the flow when it starts back up much harder to handle. When one talks about restricting vacation rentals to certain areas. One has to remember that every vacation rental is required by law to have local island representation, any problems can be addressed through that representative. Restricting vacation rentals restricts local income. Just my 2 cents.
The big issue with tourism aside from having WAY too many of them, is the “quality” of the tourists coming, not only during this pandemic but its a trend we’ve been seeing for 10-20 years now. In the past we mainly had families, people were a little older, went to tourist attractions, took tours, had careers, money to spend, they knew how to treat people in the hospitality industry, they were calmer, more relaxed, and VASTLY more respectful & considerate… now, more of our tourists are younger, they had to save and pinch pennies to afford a trip, theyre not going to any paying attractions, they arent taking tours, theyre going into local secret spots & neighborhoods where lets be real… locals dont want them (we avoid tourist spots for a reason), theyre doing hikes because its free (& having a negative impact on trails), they arent contributing to the local economy because they dont have the financial means to… theyre basically just coming to spend as little as possible, they dont really care about the negative impact theyre having & they honestly come with an entitled attitude, like “I paid to be here, I’ll do whatever I want, I’ll treat you however I want.”, & that dont fly here. I think its social media, its bringing in more people than the HTA & its bringing in the “wrong kind” of people. The “state officials” dont care about Hawai’i, the residents, the environment, they ONLY care about the money & every dollar counts, theyre like trick or treaters holding their little bags open, eyes lit up with excitement as it fills up… except their candy is the almighty tourist dollar. Theyre too lazy to actually work, to find other more stable sources for a main economy, its easier to flood the islands with tourists… not to mention their top “donators” are the resorts and hotels, which is a conflict of interest. Its sad that we miss the days when the ( cough alleged ) mob was running things ( cough allegedly ). Theres pot holes everywhere, the ambulances we have are notorious for breaking down mid transport, schools are neglected and run down, the school programs we used to have all got dropped because of a lack of “funding”, our beaches are neglected and trashed, so are our parks… wheres the money even going?! We used to have less tourists but way more money coming into the economy. The politicians have a ton of money, all have nice expensive houses, cars, go out to eat at fancy restaurants all the time, theyre always throwing fancy parties, theyre living it up… but locals cant even afford to live here… how is tourism benefitting us?! The negative aspects far outweighs the positives at this point.
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