Hawaii has a tourist-based economy. Yet tourism continues to drop. With this in mind, how will the tourist-based industries survive? This December since last year December tourism is way down; Maui tourism is down 20.5%, Hawai’i is down 19.7%, Kaua’i is down 26% and O’ahu is down 13.3% according to the Department of Business and Economic Growth. Also people who came spent on average $2 less per person per day. – Maui News- Hawaii had a total of 511518 visitors this past year. They spent a total of $844.7 million, which is $124.6 million less then the pervious year. People need to realize that a tourist base economy cannot be sustainable long term. It would make more sense for Hawaii as a whole to make a shift in economy away from a tourist base economy. Hawaii’s tourist base economy is short term and that term is almost up. It makes sense to me to take the path of sustainability through less imported products. Before haole contact there were around 500,000 Hawaiians living within the islands of Hawaii. With virtually no imports or exports these 500,000 Hawaiian lives were fully sustainable long term through agriculture and horticulture. Mainly water taro patches and fishponds supported the life of these old peoples. Back then everybody always had food. The people took care of the land and in turn the land took care of the people. Now life in Hawai’i isn’t sustainable because of the improper and irresponsible usage of the resources and our reliance on imported goods. If imports to Hawai’i were cut off we would run out of food within 3-4 days. This is not sustainability. Short-term sustainability is not sustainability at all. Economic change is the thing that will make Hawai'i more sustainable.
References
-Maui News
-www.mauinews.com
- Department of Business and Economic Growth
1 comment:
one solution that we are working on is to grow our own food. We've been working on finding places to have a community garden in order to start feeding ourselves. Like you said, a tourist based economy is not sustainable, nor is it dependable. It leaves us vulnerable to whatever whim the tourist has. For instance; they don't like the service they got by the porter? They complain -and the porter is fired. It forces us to lose dignity trying to please the tourist. And that is no way to live. If we have a sustainable economy -without tourism involved, then they cannot take our jobs or our dignity. Do you agree?
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