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We are expecting around 10 million visitors this year. Apparently, 6 million is more typical? The roads are already overloaded. Restaurant reservations are hard to make, and it's about to get much worse.
Islanders are increasingly resentful towards tourists, and tourists believe they are being squeezed for their last dollar. I have witnessed quite a few tourists who have the entitled belief that since they paid to come here, we collectively have an obligation to entertain them, as if Hawaii is a theme park.
I just flew in from LAX yesterday. The flights in both directions were overbooked. I visited Las Vegas as well. Crowded but manageable. Surprisingly the new Resorts World complex was a ghost town. We stayed at the Palazzo.
We are expecting around 10 million visitors this year. Apparently, 6 million is more typical?
Pre-Covid - it was well over 30+ years since Hawaii only got 6 million visitors. Even the darks days of the Great Recession brought nearly 7 million visitors. Even 1990 had 6.97 million visitors
Pre-Covid - it was well over 30+ years since Hawaii only got 6 million visitors. Even the darks days of the Great Recession brought nearly 7 million visitors. Even 1990 had 6.97 million visitors
So, six million is more typical than 10 million. How many times have we had 10 million?
Good news? From the article - a similar recession will bring $4 Billion less visitor money annually to the State.
Having been here during the last recession the Covid economic impact is just a flesh wound compared to what happened during the recession. Oahu weathered it ok - but the outer islands were devastated by foreclosures - shuttered businesses - but yep, less tourists.
I'm not sure if less tourists would have the same effect this time around. After 2020, a lot of folks found other things to do than to work in the tourist industry. It doesn't seem to be one big business which absorbed the ex-hotel workers, but a lot of little jobs here and there. Our yard folks used to be hotel workers and they're much happier mowing lawns (at $50 per hour! But they are fast and really good) than they were at the hotel. One of our neighbors is now growing and selling veggies instead of working at a hotel. She is happy not to have to commute and says by the time the commuting costs are factored in, she's making about the same. Since a lot of the hotels are having trouble getting workers to come back to the hotels, seems like less tourists would be a good thing. The County still taxes the income from the folks now working at non-hotel jobs, so there's still taxes being collected. Not in a big aggregate group, though, so it might be hard to track and compare the amounts.
This is a common refrain among residents of popular destinations; I live in one and the Tourist Season is something we just put to with. They spend money locally, without which we'd be living in a ghost town. Ask anyone from, say, Nantucket and the story will be the same. My sister had a house on the Jersey Shore and summertime meant traffic, ultra-crowded restaurants, parking lots and facilities and all the other delights of a tourist town. Batten down the hatches and wait it out. When the "slow season" arrives it might become more livable.
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