{"id":142763,"date":"2021-06-02T00:01:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T10:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=142763"},"modified":"2021-06-01T17:49:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T03:49:52","slug":"public-policy-center-tourism-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/02\/public-policy-center-tourism-survey\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawai\u02bbi residents favor limiting tourists, charging user fees"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/manoa-social-sciences-public-policy-center-tourism.jpg\" alt=\"photo of the beach and ocean\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-142765\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/manoa-social-sciences-public-policy-center-tourism.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/manoa-social-sciences-public-policy-center-tourism-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/manoa-social-sciences-public-policy-center-tourism-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A majority of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents prefer limiting the number of visitors to the islands and support charging entry fees for visitors at parks or other &ldquo;hot spots&rdquo; during peak times. These are some of the results from a new survey about the visitor industry conducted by the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/publicpolicycenter.manoa.hawaii.edu\/\">Public Policy Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Managing-Tourism-in-Hawaii-1.pdf\">Read the entire report<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Other findings include residents supporting the state regulating tourism more than other businesses, using rental car surcharges to pay for addressing tourism impacts and creating a &ldquo;permanent tourism advisory council system&rdquo; to include resident and industry stakeholders.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This is an important topic for our state right now as the tourism industry re-emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic,&rdquo; said <strong>Colin Moore<\/strong>, director of the Public Policy Center. &ldquo;I hope these results will lead to thoughtful conversations about how we can restructure tourism governance.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>A total of 700 <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents completed the survey, which was administered online from April 16 to May 3, 2021. The Public Policy Center is housed in the <a href=\"https:\/\/socialsciences.manoa.hawaii.edu\/\">College of Social Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Size of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s tourism market<\/h2>\n<p>Fifty-two percent of the respondents prefer limiting the number of visitors, with even stronger support among neighbor island and Native Hawaiian residents. Residents also prefer to see tourists charged and\/or required to make advance reservations at parks or other &ldquo;hot spots,&rdquo; with 78&#37; strongly favoring or somewhat favoring charging visitors an entry fee to use them during peak times.<\/p>\n<h2>Government actions<\/h2>\n<p>A strong consensus of residents feel the state should play a role in managing the tourism industry. Residents by a 2-to-1 margin said the state should control or regulate tourism more than other businesses. Support for regulating vacation rentals outside resort areas was almost 75&#37;. A majority (52&#37;) opposed allowing casino gambling in the state.<\/p>\n<h2>Tourism and COVID-19<\/h2>\n<p>Fifty-one percent of respondents rated the state\u2019s performance to limit COVID-19 threats from travel as &ldquo;fairly bad&rdquo; and another 6&#37; just &ldquo;bad.&rdquo; A plurality of 45&#37; want both vaccination and testing requirements for travelers to and from <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> and 67&#37; want the quarantine requirements the same for all counties.<\/p>\n<p>Given a choice on whether the state should focus on tourism recovery or economic diversification this year, residents want the state to focus on both equally (49&#37;), but those choosing just one went strongly with diversification (37&#37;) over tourism recovery (10&#37;).<\/p>\n<h2>Values and principles<\/h2>\n<p>Respondents were most supportive of a visitor industry that improves rather than depletes natural and cultural resources (46&#37; selection as &ldquo;most important&rdquo; in list); markets to respectful visitors (43&#37;); and assures jobs that provide a living wage (43&#37;). Also on the list were generating the most possible tax dollars (22&#37;); growing tourist dollars rather than tourist numbers (21&#37;); and avoiding actions that negatively affect <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s image (19&#37;).<\/p>\n<h2>Destination management<\/h2>\n<p>Many residents support using rental car surcharges to pay to address tourism impacts and favor green fees, which are visitor taxes specifically for natural resource protection. Results also showed that residents have diverse opinions about the <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Tourism Authority (<abbr>HTA<\/abbr>). A plurality of 35&#37; would both keep the <abbr>HTA<\/abbr> and also increase its authority in destination management. A &ldquo;permanent tourism advisory council system&rdquo; including both resident and industry stakeholders won more than 2-to-1 approval among those with clear opinions (34&#37; yes, 15&#37; no), but a plurality of 45&#37; said, &ldquo;depends how it\u2019s done.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>This work is an example of <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s goal of <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-2025-strategic-plan.pdf#page=25\">Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise<\/a> (<span class=\"small-text\"><abbr title=\"Portable Document Format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), one of four goals identified in the <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-2025-strategic-plan.pdf\">2015&#8211;25 Â鶹´«Ã½<\/a> (<span class=\"small-text\"><abbr title=\"Portable Document Format\">PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), updated in December 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A total of 700 <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents completed the survey, which was administered online from April 16 to May 3, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[301,1411,1417,1467,1061,540,1026,9],"class_list":["post-142763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-college-of-social-sciences","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-research","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-public-policy","tag-public-policy-center","tag-social-science","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142763"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142769,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142763\/revisions\/142769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}