Hawaii has been one of the world’s most popular holiday destinations for decades, but at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, tourism in Hawaii went quiet. It was only a short pause, and since fully vaccinated people have been allowed to travel domestically, there has been a boom of US travellers opting to visit this nearby island.
Locals were concerned about Coronavirus cases. In June 2021 only half the population in Hawaii had been
vaccinated. Locals accounted for 40% of positive cases on the islands, but only make up 25% of Hawaii’s
population. Tourists were allowed to arrive even though 65% of surveyed residents agreed strongly that people
from outside Hawaii should not be visiting.
Overtourism has been a growing problem. In peak weeks of 2021, more than 23,000 people arrived in Hawaii every day. This led to traffic jams, 90-minute waiting times in restaurants and shortages of hospitality workers. The situation was worsened by tourists who did not follow rules. Videos of tourist transgressions like touching endangered seals and hiking in forbidden areas have gone viral.
But the impact of overtourism is not limited to locals’ health and the environment. Many locals feel that Hawaiian culture has been turned into a commodity – sometimes called the Aloha industry - and hides its colonialist past. Locals rarely benefit from the tourism sector and often need to have more than one job to survive the high cost of living. A lot of the land has been sold to the global elite. Now local Hawaiians are fighting to keep Hawaii, well… Hawaiian. They are trying to reclaim their culture, their language and their land.