Hawaii Is Ours To Take Care Of

This past year, I retired after serving 15 years as chairman of Prince Hotels in Hawaii. This was nearly as long a run as my years as a legislator and longer than my 13 years as governor. I was heavily involved in financial management and operations. I stayed in close touch with the travel industry and its relationship to the larger community.

What deeply concerned me as governor continues to concern me these many years later: The travel industry is in danger of degrading and eventually destroying the scenic and cultural resources on which it has thrived, and hardly anyone seems to be talking about this dire possibility. Visitor numbers are up, and that seems to be all-important.

I would like to give the situation a different perspective: When the numbers are up is a good time to talk, a good time to plan. Where are we? What do we do next? How can we leave a healthy legacy to coming generations?

The public conversation I have in mind should involve a broad cross-section of stakeholders, which means including people who, on a daily basis, have nothing to do with tourism. Furthermore, the focus for such a conversation is at hand, with the release of the state of Hawaii's new tourism study. However, achieving real dialogue will not be easy.

The reason is that the No. 1 item on the public agenda should be carrying capacity. How much tourism can Hawaii comfortably take? When do we have too much of a good thing? At what point do a large number of our citizens rebel against the level of visitor intrusion? At what point do visitors sense this and start to pull away?

The question of carrying capacity goes to the heart of everything, and precious few people want to face it.

Rather, what I hear most often is creating more things for visitors to do. This idea awakens in me a fear that Hawaii will become a vast Disneyland, in which we periodically add new attractions. In opposition, I would argue for preserving the wonders of nature and the vibrancy of our culture. Let people come here to experience a quiet joy in an environment of safety and harmony.

Most citizens would probably agree with this approach, but the majority is literally silent, while layers and layers of interests promote the notion of "more and more." The important issues of the travel industry get stifled beneath layers of managers. The most traditional manager in the arena is the Hawaii Convention and Visitors Bureau. Since its nearly sole focus is marketing, perhaps everyone can agree it is not equipped to deal with industry growth policy. One layer up is the Hawaii Tourism Authority. HTA was supposed to be a big-picture, policy-making organization, but it has been severely critiqued for becoming mainly a marketing organization by another name. In apparent frustration, the governor created her own visitor-industry coordinator. The result is three levels of institutions that filter questions before they reach the governor and the Legislature. We should ask, "Is this network serving the long-term interests of the public or the short-term interests of the industry?"

We should also inquire into the level of citizenship practiced by today's travel industry. As local ownership dwindles, real local involvement and long-term local commitment also seem to dwindle. Possibly by its nature, tourism is hypersensitive to the short term–to percentages of hotel occupancy, the number of airplane flights, and quickie marketing campaigns. If this is so, it is all the more reason for the public to get involved in such issues as infrastructure, resource distribution, equitable taxation, air and ground transportation, and the impact of ever-growing numbers on recreation, scenic and cultural resources.

Hawaii is ours to take care of.

George R. Ariyoshi is the former president of Prince Resorts Hawaii Inc., a subsidiary of Seibu Railway Co. Ltd. An attorney by profession, Ariyoshi served in elective office in Hawaii from 1954 until 1986. A protégé of the late Gov. John A. Burns, Ariyoshi served as governor of Hawaii from 1973 until 1986. He was the first Japanese American to be elected governor in the United States. In the years since he left the state Capitol, Ariyoshi has been active in Hawaii and international business circles, particularly in Asia.

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