How locals feel about tourists

     Most people come to Hawaii for a nice way to relax under the nice tropical weather, but many end up leaving the island in a way worse than they found it. Some locals feel like when tourists come to visit the Hawaiian Islands they don’t take into account if the way they act is respectful or not.Well, these feelings have been very mixed for the past decades. Locals state they believe that many tourists disrespect their culture and the land they grew up on. While others believe that these acts aren’t disrespectful, but visitors are attempting to learn how to be more respectful.

     The question some locals have is what do tourists do while they visit the Hawaiian Islands? Well of course they come to the islands to visit the famous and beautiful beaches as well as the tourist spots we have across all the islands. This isn’t the case sometimes as many tourists are caught not respecting the rules and have been caught for their actions. For example, a tourist filmed himself urinating on top of Kilauea. This upset many locals as it was disrespectful to the land, and made the person responsible delete the video and apologize for his actions. Another example is two teens caught destroying a sand sculpture at the famous Hawaiian hotel named The Royal Hawaiian Hotel which is located at Waikiki. That’s also not mentioning all the times when tourists visit national parks and proceed to leave public areas just to take a photo for social media on land they aren’t supposed to be standing on. For instance, a few tourists have been seen going onto kapu (prohibited) land just filming themselves and taking pictures for social media. This is highly disrespectful to Hawaiian culture as under sacred laws you are unablel to step onto sacred land back in ancient Hawaiian times. Sometimes a few locals will speak up and tell these tourists to leave the area as it is disrespectful to even stand on that land. This doesn’t entirely mean that all tourists act like this as some look into Hawaiian culture and realize what can be acceptable and disrespectful. Some even decide to listen to the rules and respect what is being told to them. 

           As stated before some locals can feel outraged when tourists don’t respect Hawaiian Culture. Ke Ali’i interviewed a man named Michael Celluar who has been living on the islands and even works across O’ahu, Maui, and Hawai’i. Ke Ali’i asked him certain questions about tourism and one of them was does he believe that tourism is improving the islands. As he stated, “I believe tourists are helping the Hawaiian islands because they help provide jobs and economic security for Hawaii and allow us to improve the state.” Some locals realize that having these tourists on the islands lets them have more job opportunities. It helps with the employment rate here on the islands since there aren't as many jobs to apply for here as there are on the mainland. 

Some locals also don’t mind having tourists on the islands because they get to spread their culture to others who didn’t have any clue as to what it means to be Hawaiian. As one stated, “I believe that tourists coming to the Hawaiian islands spread awareness of Hawaiian culture because we believe in aloha here in Hawai’i, and when these visitors come, we try to spread awareness and show them the way.” Some locals also believe that the amount of activists that are available on the islands is currently enough for people coming from all over the world. Whether they come to visit the beaches, national parks, and more, some locals believe that there are enough activities for people visiting the islands to do.

“I believe there are currently enough spots for everybody to enjoy a little piece of paradise” one local stated. This can correlate with more unique jobs being available on the islands, like being state rangers to help maintain the local environment for these historic places. Now this doesn’t mean that some locals appreciate when thousands of tourists come to visit the islands at once. One local believes “I do believe that we need to regulate the amount of people that come here so that we can preserve the beauty of the place and not have too much tourism and overcrowding here in such a beautiful spot.” Many locals feel this way and it's very understandable because they grew up surrounded by these beautiful surroundings like beaches, plants, and animals. 

Sometimes visitors mess with things and cause a severe backlash towards these three things like when it comes from littering, taking plants, lava rocks, and inc. This leads to some locals believing that we should develop a new type of economic system for the islands so that the islands don’t have to fully focus on tourism for their income. One local that Ke Ali’i interviewed believes that using agriculture is a good way to create a new economic system on the islands as said “We can grow our own food, we need to have food independence here. It’s so expensive to buy food here and I think that would be a great way to help sustain Hawaii without tourism.” Some locals want to do everything themselves and not have to rely on outsiders to have a stable society. Which leads to locals wanting to try to do everything themselves without really the American government or from outsiders who don’t live on the islands.

          Some solutions to the problems that have been stated before like the man urinating on top of Kilauea or the tourist teens destroying a sand sculpture at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel are teaching tourists about these things before they even land near the Hawaiian islands. As the Hawaiian Tourist Authority (HTA) has stated that they will keep tabs on the tourists acting disrespectfully and might add an educational video that visitors will see on the planes before they arrive. Will this help the current situation with some visitors not showing the aloha spirit towards others or even the land? Some locals believe that this wouldn’t change how visitors act when they arrive on the islands. “I really don’t see the point in trying to set up videos on planes before tourists come to the islands because the people who usually care would watch the video while the people who don’t care wouldn’t even bother in watching the videos and still do what has been happening here for years” as Weston Zafrani has stated. HTA has even talked about spreading even more awareness through social media, and hotels that guests will be staying at. This could help affect the current situation with tourists not behaving but that same statement still applies. It really would only affect the people who do act respectful to the islands while the other group will simply just ignore it. There isn’t much that can be done to fix how tourists who act disrespectful toward the islands except become more strict at the national parks and beaches. Most locals truly think this may be the only way to prevent visitors from not following the rules and disrespecting Hawaiian culture. 

           How tourists act towards the people of the islands as well as the islands themselves has always been pretty upsetting. From people urinating on top of Kilauea to the people who destroyed a sculpture at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. These individuals were not educated about how to act properly towards the land that welcomes them on their visit. All we can hope for is that people will start listening instead of caring only about how they look on the internet. All we can truly do is continue to spread aloha to those who come to visit the islands of paradise.