KILAUEA — Tourism means different things to different people in Hawai‘i. To some, it is the state’s leading economic driver, providing nearly 30 percent of the state’s revenue. To others, it represents a development tool that favors the needs and
KILAUEA — Tourism means different things to different people in Hawai‘i. To some, it is the state’s leading economic driver, providing nearly 30 percent of the state’s revenue. To others, it represents a development tool that favors the needs and desires of the visitor over the needs of the resident and exploits Hawai‘i’s natural resources, its host community and its culture.
This “love-hate” relationship is one of many symptoms of a fundamental disconnect between the tourism industry and the Native Hawaiian culture and community. This has been defined as a significant issue by Hawaiian communities for decades, but recently the industry itself has acknowledged this disconnect, as described by the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority in its 2005 State Tourism Strategic Plan.
In response to this and other fundamental flaws in the current tourism model, Pasifika Foundation Hawai‘i, a nonprofit organization guided by a board of maoli educators, cultural practitioners and businesspeople, is committed to developing a community-based host-visitor business model as an alternative approach, converting tourism from a process aimed at only serving the visitor’s needs to one that is mutually beneficial for both host and guest, and where visitors can begin to understand life in Hawai‘i from the lens of kanaka maoli.
PFH’s project seeks to turn the way Hawai‘i looks at “tourism” on its head, focusing not on ever-increasing growth, filling more seats on planes and beds in hotels, and creating tourism experiences geared to the visitor’s vacation fantasies, but on maoli communities and their own community goals and objectives.
For decades, the prevailing business model has catered to the fickle needs of a traveler seeking leisure, recreation and entertainment, sand and surf, sun and fun. What began long ago as a practice of travelers visiting and engaging their hosts by residing with them and abiding by the customs and practices of the place, tourism has devolved into an impersonal experience where intimate contact and relationships with the host community are almost non-existent and managed by a wall of commerce where the traveler no longer subscribes to the customs of the place but has become “accustomed” to “customized” experiences.
This model has turned a once welcoming hosting culture into a reluctant service-oriented community where the host is treated like a servant — who in turn is expected to deliver well choreographed experiences that are more contrived than genuine, and where sense-of-place is valued less than the mechanics and standard operating procedures associated with brand recognition. In short, the prevailing customer-focused paradigm has not only fostered a dynamic that compromises the identity of the place — Hawai‘i — but manages to undermine the dignity and integrity of Hawai‘i’s host culture — kanaka maoli — as well.
The community-based host-visitor model aims to provide maoli hosts and communities with an opportunity to operate from a set of values and principles that enable them to share their history and culture with the visitor in ways that preserve community dignity and cultural integrity. By enabling maoli hosts to establish and execute cultural and place-based rules of engagement that culturally sensitize, socially enrich, and build meaningful relationships between maoli host, the ‘aina and the visitor, the CBHV process aims to transform “tourism” into something much more meaningful for both hosts and visitors, where the outcome is not one of entertainment but is instead focused on learning, sharing, and making genuine connections with the place and its people.
PFH’s project began in 2006 and has been carried out in three phases: Phase 1 involved a gathering of wisdom from around Pasifika to define the project; in Phase 2, an information system was created, using innovative multimedia approaches, including geographic information systems, to visualize the current and potential framework for the development of a viable and sustainable community-based program of hosting visitors.
The current Phase 3 is a two-year project, funded by the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), that will build on the previous two CBHV development phases. It involves the creation of a pilot web-based interface that serves to connect visitors and host communities. Key elements of this interface include a curriculum to educate visitors, a process to screen them, and a way for hosts to invite visitors to share whatever cultural experience they might be offering.
If the pilot interface proves successful, it will be ready for wider implementation and marketing in two to three years.
Throughout Hawai‘i, there are many projects seeking to address the love/hate relationship with tourism.
• Ana Currie is the community-based host-visitor project director. Andrea Brower works for North Shore nonprofit Malama Kaua‘i. On Thursday, Malama Kaua‘i and the Ho‘okipa Network will be hosting a community meeting with Pasifika Foundation Hawai‘i. A brief presentation of the project will be followed by a conversation about community goals and how this project may be of benefit in achieving those goals. The meeting will be from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Mo‘ikeha Building in Lihu‘e. For more information, call Brower at 635-1659.
