Managing Tourism in Hawai‘i: A Survey of Resident Attitudes on Destination Management Issues
A survey of resident attitudes about the visitor industry. Topics include tourism and COVID-19, government actions to regulate tourism, destination management roles and financing, and the organization of destination management.
From UH Public Policy Center, June 2, 2021
Executive Summary
Hawai‘i residents have long had a complicated relationship with the visitor industry. Although tourism generates tax revenue and jobs, there are longstanding concerns about the impact on Hawai‘i’s natural resources and day-to-day quality of life. These voices of concern reached a crescendo when visitor arrivals peaked at 10 million in 2019.
Just a year later, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in March of 2020, tourism was essentially shut down in the islands. Many residents faced job losses and extreme financial stress, but others were relieved to visit their favorite beaches and trails without fighting traffic and crowds. For some, the statewide shutdown of tourism presented an opportunity to imagine new ways to govern the state’s primary industry.
We wanted to better understand resident attitudes about the visitor industry and to evaluate how people viewed different approaches to destination management. This study by the University of Hawai‘i Public Policy Center (UH-PPC) is one of the few Hawai‘i statewide resident surveys on tourism not sponsored by the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority or by the State Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism.
The UH-PPC contracted Anthology Research to field the survey using an online methodology. Fieldwork for the study began on April 16, 2021 and ended on May 3, 2021. A total of 700 online surveys were completed during this time period. The margin of error for a sample of this size is +/- 3.70 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.
Executive Summary (pdf)
Full Report (pdf)
Banner Tables (pdf)
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