Tourism in Hawaii
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hawaiʻi is the name of a chain of several islands and are among the numerous Pacific Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Of these, the islands which have significant tourism are: Hawaiʻi, Oʻahu, Maui, Kauaʻi, and Lānaʻi.
In 2003 alone, according to state government data (see[1]), there were over 6.4 million visitors to the Hawaiian Islands with expenditures of over $10 billion. Due to the mild year-round weather, tourist travel is popular throughout the year. The summer months and major holidays are the most popular times for outsiders to visit, however, especially when residents of the rest of the United States are looking to escape from cold, winter weather. The Japanese, with their economic and historical ties to Hawaii and the USA as well as relative geographical proximity, are also principal tourists.
2006 and 2007 saw a big increase in tourism, with over 7.6 million visitors.
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[edit] History of Travel to Hawaiʻi
Hawaii was first populated no later than the 2nd century A.D. by people of Polynesian origin, most likely from Tahiti.[1] Subsequent Western contact began as a consequence of European Enlightenment exploration and was continued by Protestant ministers of New England origin in the early 19th century.
[edit] 18th century
The first recorded western visitor to Hawaiʻi was Captain James Cook on his third and fatal voyage in the Pacific. His French rival La Pérouse is also a potential first visitor, but his expedition was lost and no record remains of any visit.
[edit] 19th century
19th century travelers included journalist Isabella Bird. American writers include Mark Twain aboard the Ajax as a travel journalist with the San Francisco Chronicle, and Herman Melville as a whaler. Twain's unfinished novel of Hawaii was incorporated into his A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, with King Arthur bearing striking similarities to Kamehameha V, the first reigning monarch Twain was to meet. The "modernizing" potential offered by the Connecticut Yankee from the future is a satire of the potentially negative Protestant Missionary influence on Hawaiian life. Melville's writing of the Pacific includes Typee and Omoo (considered factual travel accounts when published) and his Pacific experiences would develop, infamously, into the portrayal of the fictional savage Queequeg in Moby-Dick. Like Twain, Melville's character Queequeg is critical of some of the darker effects of missionary influence on island life.
British writers include the Scot Robert Louis Stevenson, whose subsequent In the South Seas was published based on his voyages. During his stay in the islands, he wrote a stunning defense of Father Damien's work with the lepers of Kalaupapa against the politicized views of Father Damien's Protestant detractors. Consequently, Hawaiʻi is home to the eponymous Stevenson Middle School. Stevenson later died in Samoa.
[edit] 20th century
In 1907, Jack London and his wife Charmian sailed to Hawaii learning the "Royal Sport" of Surfing and travelling by horse back to Haleakala and Hana as chronicalled in his book The Cruise of the Snark. Since then, Hawaii has seen an explosion of tourists from the American mainland and Japan. Native Hawaiian Academic and Activist Haunani-Kay Trask's Lovely Hula Hands is a severe critic of the huge influx of tourists to Hawaiʻi, which she terms a "prostitution" of Hawaiian culture. She ends her essay with "let me just leave this thought behind. If you are thinking of visiting my homeland, please don't. We don't want or need any more tourists, and we certainly don't like them."[2] Her criticism is not without controversy.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hawaii |
- Hawaii State DBEDT - the state's Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism provides resources and statistics to promote tourism
- Hawaiʻi Visitors & Convention Bureau - information for tourists and business travellers
- Maui Visitors Bureau - visitors information for Maui
- Kauaʻi Visitors Information - official county visitors site
- Lānaʻi Visitors Bureau - travel information for Lānaʻi
- Aloha Boat Days Committee - tourism in Hawaiʻi via cruise ship
- The Kauaian Institute - sustainability in Hawaiʻi and ahupuaʻa maps
