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It used to be almost gauche to complain about too many tourists. Read more

It used to be almost gauche to complain about too many tourists. It showed a lack of graciousness, a shameful unwillingness to share, perhaps a touch of xenophobia in the disapproval of the outside world invading Hawaii’s insular ways. Of course, just about everyone did complain about tourism’s imposition on island life, but only in the car with family when the clueless driver of a rented convertible tried to course-correct too late after missing a turn, or when a favorite restaurant suddenly sprouted a long line of people in garish polyester “Hawaiian shirts” crowding the entrance.

Irritation has grown as visitor numbers have grown.

One of the many ways Hawaii is changing is that talking about overtourism is now beyond the realm of private grumbling and has entered public forums. This is true all over the globe as the age of air travel and cheap adventures strains and tramples quaint villages and historic sites just about everywhere.

It is especially true in Hawaii, where for generations it has been drilled into island residents that we are a supremely generous people willing to give the best of what we have to total strangers, but now residents are demanding something be done to stop the madness.

The Maui County Council is now talking about overtourism and actually saying, out loud and in a open meeting, that action has to be taken — not more studies, but real action — to right-size the number of visitors who descend upon the island. At times last year, there was one tourist on Maui for every 2.4 residents.

The Kauai County leaders have been talking about the impact of tourism on Kauai, specifically the island’s North Shore, which, during the long recovery from the devastating flood last year, discovered how peaceful it can be when there aren’t thousands of tourists choking up the roads and spoiling unspoiled places every day.

The New York Times recently ran a piece with the headline “Overtourism worries Europe” that included this big-picture description:

“Every summer, the most popular European destinations get stuffed to the gills with tourists, who outnumber locals by many multiples, turning hot spots into sweaty, selfie-stick-clogged, Disneyfied towns … This growth might once have been considered unambiguously good news. But the world’s most popular destinations cannot expand to accommodate an infinite flood of visitors. Advocates of curbing tourism say too many visitors are altering the character of historic cities, and making travel terrible, too.”

The story describes places around Europe all but ruined by tourism and for every international example, there is a local situation to match.

The gap between the number of people who vacation in Hawaii and the amount of money they spend during their time here has widened, but the fix to this economic challenge is not to bring in more tourists.

The tourism industry has been Hawaii’s economic engine for decades, but the old rules no longer apply. The goal can’t be to increase arrival numbers year after year.