a newspaper article in yesterday's Bulletin...
http://starbulletin.com/2004/09/14/business/story2.html
we read statements that bring to mind that old slogan;
"people unclear on the concept"...
"It's important that all travelers see Hawaii as unspoiled, Kitchen said. "We need to educate people about Hawaii and show them a Hawaii that's pristine."
"Hawaii's marketing messages also need to focus on convincing visitors that Hawaii remains a beautiful, scenic, uncrowded destination despite continued development, he said."
"It's critical that Hawaii establish itself as a destination with a unique sense of place, said Ramsay Taum of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association."
and here's a whopper:
"Marketing a destination is about the experience," Taum said. "What's essential to Hawaii is the art of welcoming strangers."
Duuuh...
A recent survey regarding residents' perception of the Hawaii visitor industry makes obvious many problems inherent in this subject:
About 1,500 people were polled and about half say they support growth of the tourist industry (actually they responded in the slight affirmative to a question in this regard). $25,000 was spent to ask about 1,500 people some general, vague questions which require only an "agree or disagree" option. Then the perception of the poll results are easily warped. Keith Vieira of the tourism authority board is quoted as saying:
"I'm ecstatic: 88 percent of the population believes there should be growth."
What does this mean? Growth of what? And how did he get the idea most of the island's total population support growth from a poll of about 1,500?
What does tourism "growth" mean? More tourists? More hotels? More development?
It's a universal truth. Polls do not really reflect what the public thinks. The poll results can and are massaged and represented to reflect and support any desired conclusion or stance.
This poll will be used to justify the further development of what many say tourists want (regardless of what tourists actually want, since they are not interviewed. And if they are, the results will be massaged again to justify the interests of the status quo).
We can continue to welcome tourists visiting our islands and still not overdevelop the islands.
To back this concept up, here are results from another poll (done for free):
I have been in the Polynesian gifts industry since about 1989 and have talked with the people these polls should address. I have "interviewed" the folks that the various island visitor comittees should be concerned with: the "tourists."
Thousands of visitors I've talked to over the last decade have expressed the sentiment that they have no reason to visit Hawaii anymore, as the state resembles any other resort in a big city.
Hawaii, as they once knew it to be, has been destroyed, or "Californicated." Our beaches, mountains, skies are littered with development.
Look at Waikiki: many complain it has become a monolithic, slightly-open-air concrete temple devoted to the worship of the almighty dollar and the supreme god of consumerism.
The negative effects are painfully obvious to all, with the exception of those blinded by the "redevelopmentality."
For example, look at our traffic -- it has reached critical mass with gridlock even at midday. The H-1 Freeway is crawling along from Kaimuki to Kalihi at 2 p.m.
No one in the tourist or visitor industry wants to acknowledge that visitors want to see Hawaii, but instead are greeted with these problems that we face and live with everyday. There -- I just saved the Hawaii Tourism Authority, The Hawaii Visitor Convention Bureau and the State Department Business Economic Development and Tourism a big chunk of cash. But I am delivering a message not as warmy and fuzzy as the first message delivered through taxpayers' cash via costly pollers.
The message I deliver is a sad one, however. Our islands have a unique quality not shared by any other destination in the world. Hawaii is not Las Vegas, nor is it Wilshire, or Mexico. But we are turning it into just another overdeveloped, overbuilt generic resort and overdeveloped gridlocked "bustling" city indistinguishable from all others, with the opposite effect we are seeking. Tourists are simply staying away in droves because Hawaii is not Hawaii anymore. Rather, they are visiting, in greater numbers, the exotic tropical locales still relatively unspoiled. That actually HAVE acheived that hackneyed phrase: "retain a sense of place"
Talk with any visitor you take around our city: they all comment; "It's so crowded here. ... Too much traffic. Overbuilt. Looks like L.A. You can get this merchandise anywhere else around the world."
But residents don't complain because we have allowed the overdeveloped Hawaii to creep up on us, and ignorance and complacency will be our undoing.
Let's retain that Old Hawaii look where we can and build that up if we need to build anything.
http://starbulletin.com/2004/09/14/business/story2.html
we read statements that bring to mind that old slogan;
"people unclear on the concept"...
"It's important that all travelers see Hawaii as unspoiled, Kitchen said. "We need to educate people about Hawaii and show them a Hawaii that's pristine."
"Hawaii's marketing messages also need to focus on convincing visitors that Hawaii remains a beautiful, scenic, uncrowded destination despite continued development, he said."
"It's critical that Hawaii establish itself as a destination with a unique sense of place, said Ramsay Taum of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association."
and here's a whopper:
"Marketing a destination is about the experience," Taum said. "What's essential to Hawaii is the art of welcoming strangers."
Duuuh...
A recent survey regarding residents' perception of the Hawaii visitor industry makes obvious many problems inherent in this subject:
About 1,500 people were polled and about half say they support growth of the tourist industry (actually they responded in the slight affirmative to a question in this regard). $25,000 was spent to ask about 1,500 people some general, vague questions which require only an "agree or disagree" option. Then the perception of the poll results are easily warped. Keith Vieira of the tourism authority board is quoted as saying:
"I'm ecstatic: 88 percent of the population believes there should be growth."
What does this mean? Growth of what? And how did he get the idea most of the island's total population support growth from a poll of about 1,500?
What does tourism "growth" mean? More tourists? More hotels? More development?
It's a universal truth. Polls do not really reflect what the public thinks. The poll results can and are massaged and represented to reflect and support any desired conclusion or stance.
This poll will be used to justify the further development of what many say tourists want (regardless of what tourists actually want, since they are not interviewed. And if they are, the results will be massaged again to justify the interests of the status quo).
We can continue to welcome tourists visiting our islands and still not overdevelop the islands.
To back this concept up, here are results from another poll (done for free):
I have been in the Polynesian gifts industry since about 1989 and have talked with the people these polls should address. I have "interviewed" the folks that the various island visitor comittees should be concerned with: the "tourists."
Thousands of visitors I've talked to over the last decade have expressed the sentiment that they have no reason to visit Hawaii anymore, as the state resembles any other resort in a big city.
Hawaii, as they once knew it to be, has been destroyed, or "Californicated." Our beaches, mountains, skies are littered with development.
Look at Waikiki: many complain it has become a monolithic, slightly-open-air concrete temple devoted to the worship of the almighty dollar and the supreme god of consumerism.
The negative effects are painfully obvious to all, with the exception of those blinded by the "redevelopmentality."
For example, look at our traffic -- it has reached critical mass with gridlock even at midday. The H-1 Freeway is crawling along from Kaimuki to Kalihi at 2 p.m.
No one in the tourist or visitor industry wants to acknowledge that visitors want to see Hawaii, but instead are greeted with these problems that we face and live with everyday. There -- I just saved the Hawaii Tourism Authority, The Hawaii Visitor Convention Bureau and the State Department Business Economic Development and Tourism a big chunk of cash. But I am delivering a message not as warmy and fuzzy as the first message delivered through taxpayers' cash via costly pollers.
The message I deliver is a sad one, however. Our islands have a unique quality not shared by any other destination in the world. Hawaii is not Las Vegas, nor is it Wilshire, or Mexico. But we are turning it into just another overdeveloped, overbuilt generic resort and overdeveloped gridlocked "bustling" city indistinguishable from all others, with the opposite effect we are seeking. Tourists are simply staying away in droves because Hawaii is not Hawaii anymore. Rather, they are visiting, in greater numbers, the exotic tropical locales still relatively unspoiled. That actually HAVE acheived that hackneyed phrase: "retain a sense of place"
Talk with any visitor you take around our city: they all comment; "It's so crowded here. ... Too much traffic. Overbuilt. Looks like L.A. You can get this merchandise anywhere else around the world."
But residents don't complain because we have allowed the overdeveloped Hawaii to creep up on us, and ignorance and complacency will be our undoing.
Let's retain that Old Hawaii look where we can and build that up if we need to build anything.
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