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This paper by Peter Apo comes from http://pub66.ezboard.com/fnahhafrm1.showMessage?topicID=25.topic
It is a paper that to my mind makes a lot of sense with respect to host culture and tourism.
Luncheon Address by Peter Apo
Friday, April 12, East-West Center
University of Hawai`i –Manoa
BEST Think Tank: Promoting Best Practices In Sustainable Travel & Tourism
Preservation & Sustainability of the
Native Hawaiian Culture
in Respect to Hawai`i’s Tourism Industry
HAWAIIAN GREETING DEFINED
Aloha Kakou! Aloha! I just expressed to you a simple and standard Hawaiian greeting. Not just a welcome, it embodies a hospitality value of the Hawaiian culture that is intrinsic to our people. What I said was, “Let there be friendship or love between us.”
A-L-O is presence. H-A means breath as in the breath of life. ALOHA - to be in the presence of each other’s breath - to be of the same life-giving breath – to be bonded in friendship. Hawaiian greetings like these are very special and yet are routinely extended to strangers. This extension of unconditional love and trust is a centuries-old hospitality tradition of the Hawaiian culture.
In the 15th century when the great chief Ma’ilikukahi was chosen to be King of Oahu, he moved the seat of government to Waikiki where he began a long reign of benevolence and prosperity. A hallmark characteristic of his rule was the degree to which he saw to the comfort of his people and the extension of these comforts to all strangers. So it followed that Waikiki became a place of healing, respite, and entertainment for commoners and strangers as much as for Hawai`i’s monarchy. Hawaiians have been in the hospitality business since the 15th century - and the concept of ho`okipa (Hawaiian hospitality) is still an intrinsic cultural characteristic of the Hawaiian people. Unfortunately, the opportunities for us to access the visitor industry to express that ho`okipa has greatly diminished in the last 35 years of industry growth.
DISENFRANCHISEMENT
As a people we are continually disappointed when we try to confront the realities of Hawai`i’s contemporary visitor industry landscape. Hawai`i’s hospitality industry paradigm is a model of exclusion and far from the Hawaiian cultural model of ho`okipa. The Hawaiian people and cultural practitioners are distanced from the hospitality centers of Waikiki, Lahaina-Ka`anapali, and Kihei. Opportunities for Hawaiians to engage the visitor on Hawaiian terms - with dignity and in a genuine cultural encounter – have nearly disappeared. Descendants of the world’s greatest hosts have been disenfranchised from the very industry they created in their own land.
If it were up to us to write the top ten list of Best Practices In Sustainable Travel and Tourism for Hawai`i, our number one would be: “Sustain The Presence of the Host Culture”. Number two would be: “Sustain The Presence of the Host Culture”. Right on through number ten.
TO THE QUESTION
So what happened between the reign of King Ma’ilikukahi in 1500 A.D. and Hawai`i 2002? Our story is not unique to Hawai`i. Almost everywhere that tourism has become a major part of the local economy, growth has come at the expense of the native culture. Why is this? What is it about a destination’s growth that starts with a welcoming host society and ends up with escalating levels of host hostility? Be assured that I don’t present these findings as judgmental statements or as calls to action for industry bashing. I present these views as an advocate of an industry that has to seek solutions. If anything needs to be sustained in a visitor destination it is a friendly and welcoming host population. Ironically, the industry seems unaware that sustaining this good will is the number one at-risk factor in tourism’s global expansion.
THE GLOBAL EXPERIENCE OF MASS TRAVEL
To put the preservation and sustainability of the Native Hawaiian culture in context, we need to look at the global experience of mass travel.
Mass Travel Will Change the World
Mass travel – of which 80% is tourism travel – is about a three and a half trillion dollar industry. Within the next twenty-five years, economists predict it will soar to between 10 and 15 trillion, making it one of the world’s largest growth industries. Why are we so sure that the growth curve will maintain itself? Because the urge to travel is one of the purest of human urges – the urge to see the world, to meet other people and see how they live, and to see the world’s great and famous wonders. Traveling for pleasure not only informs and titillates us, it possesses us. More than any other phenomena of the last hundred years - more than nuclear power, television or computers - mass travel will change the world. Whether these changes present opportunities or obstacles for travel destinations will depend on the quality of corporate and government leadership.
Mass Travel Findings Are New
Mass travel, particularly travel for tourism, is a relatively new phenomenon to the world. It is only in the last 60 years that mass travel has been affordable for large numbers of people and that technologies and travel systems have made it possible to move millions of people around the world swiftly and safely. Tourism has achieved unprecedented levels of sophistication in marketing, transport systems, transient accommodations and food management. Today whole armies of tourists descend wave upon wave on the most far flung destinations that were inaccessible only fifty years ago. In my own lifetime in Hawai`i we have gone from a couple of Matson ocean liners a week to thousands of visitors carried by fleets of jet liners. The industry is so young that only in recent years have we been able to measure the impact of tourism on destinations around the globe.
SUSTAINING MARKET SHARE
In examining the question of preservation and sustainability, I make four assumptions. The first assumption is that we are concerned about sustainable strategies as they might impact or relate to sustaining market share and accommodating growth.
Sustaining Topistics
The second assumption is that we want to sustain those things that attracted the early visitor to the developing destination in the first place and gave the destination its “market value”. It is ironic that in most destinations these are the same things that are loved and cherished by the host population - those things that define them as a people and the place as theirs. Many of these things are obvious. Historic landmarks. Historic buildings. Outstanding natural resource features – pristine beaches, forests, lakes, and streams. Inner city urban landscapes that evoke a sense of place. The cultural landscape of a rural setting. The grand institutions that provide unbroken links to the past and preserve the ceremonies and traditions that tie the past to the future. The cultural traditions that celebrate their heritage. George Kanahele, the founder of the organization I represent – the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association – came up with the word “topistics”. And he defines topistics as the study of intangible aspects of a place such as it is anthropological history, it is cultural experiences and expressions, community memory, societal behaviors, the collective emotional output of the host population, smells, sounds, colors, all of which amalgams into an energy field that radiates from a place. An electronic manifestation of the cultural landscape, which can be felt, experienced, and translated into an emotion by a visitor about the place. So, he postulates that visitors travel in search of a topistical feeling that while they may not be able to describe it – when they find it – it is a very important value discovery. So, Hawai`i’s challenge is how do we preserve our topistical Hawaiian sense of place – a question I’ll address in a moment.
Sustaining Inclusion of the Host Culture: Is a “Hawaiian” Experience Wanted?
The third assumption is that most people who come to Hawai`i have the expectation that they will encounter a Hawaiian experience. I should make clear that the Hawaiian culture is alive and thriving. The Hawaiian culture is not dependent on tourism to thrive and be perpetuated and in fact it is probably fair to say that the Hawaiian culture has thrived in spite of tourism. So the culture is not only being sustained its experiencing exponential growth. The tragedy is that genuine Hawaiian cultural experiences only infrequently get connected to the visitor market. And for the record a Polynesian Revue is not about Hawaiian culture and the average overpriced luau is not a Hawaiian experience. So there is a profoundly disturbing disconnect between what we believe is very high visitor interest in genuine Hawaiian experiences presented by Hawaiians and the 7,000,000 Tourists who visit Hawai`i each year.
Guest - Host - Place
The fourth assumption involves the definition of a “tourism experience”. The Hawaiian ho`okipa model assumes a “tourism” experience as a triangular relationship between the GUEST, the HOST, and the PLACE . When these three elements converge, you have a “tourism experience”. The quality of the experience is determined by how well each of the elements is managed and the conditions that prevail at the time of convergence. When we contrast what occurs in the prevailing tourism model we find there is a profound difference between the two models.
THE GUEST FIRST – BUSINESS MODEL
In the business model of the three elements – guest, host, and place - the guest looms the most important. That’s understandable. “The customer is always right” is a tried and true services industry principle in every other business. However, this “guest first” model has an evolutionary pattern that profoundly changes the destination.
Visitors change a place first by their presence, then by their expectations. The comforts and amenities they expect – like standards of transportation, restaurants and hotels – all must be created specifically for them. In our rush to make the visitor comfortable, we begin to change the place. This completely alters the landscape as well as the environmental and regional culture, which took many generations to evolve. Then one day we look around and find that we’ve re-created the place from which the visitor was trying to escape.
So, because of our Waikiki mistakes, and despite all the marketing of Oahu, this is the place you fly over on your way to Maui. (And take note: if Maui is not careful, they can easily go the way of Waikiki. Already, the Kihei skyline looms formidable! )
The good news for Waikiki is that we are finally coming out of our denial, acknowledging our mistakes, and moving to significantly re-alter that landscape. The Revitalization of Waikiki is our most important tourism challenge.
THE PLACE FIRST – HO’OKIPA MODEL
If the guest is not first, you might think the host would be first. Wrong. In the ho`okipa model, the condition of the place is the key to defining the quality of the experience. The ho`okipa model seeks to protect the place –not for the visitor’s comfort – but for the comfort of the host population. This is how you sustain the welcome of the host population.
And to be clear – the ho`okipa model does not preclude destination development. But it begs sensitivity to the cultural landscape and assigning value to view planes, seascapes, historic buildings, historic sites, and all those things that culturally define the community and give them their sense of place. The ho`okipa model preserves the dignity of the place as the most important aspect of destination development to preserve and sustain. This means development models that preserve important cultural landscapes through good planning, including design codes and height restrictions where necessary, guarding against obnoxious intrusions on culturally sensitive areas. Good planning also guards against the removal or altering of historic buildings and cultural landscapes that feed the human spirit of the host population. We are back to topistics – that feeling that we all seek when we travel. That energy field that vibrates off the earth and surrounds you when the topistics are in alignment. The bottom line - protecting and sustaining the topistical life of a community - contributes significantly to its value in the marketplace.
THE HOST
Now to the host. If the ho`okipa model puts the place before the host, it is because for native populations, the place is the very embodiment of the host culture. As the place goes – so goes the host.
I cite Waikiki again as the example of a destination that alienated its Host. The tough sell on Waikiki is to the local population, to convince them that it is not beyond redemption. Native Hawaiians are even a tougher sell on Waikiki.
But George Kanahele gave me a wake up call by arguing that Waikiki has never stopped being a Hawaiian place. The iwi kupuna, the bones of our ancestors lie beneath its streets and under its parks. I was a tough sell for George – until the day I was invited to the corner of Kalakaua and Alohilani Street to witness a burial excavation. As I stood there staring down into a sand pit, watching a burial specialist reach down with a brush and gently brush away some sand - there appeared a baby’s skull and next to it probably its mother. The experience brought me to tears and I began to understand what George was trying to tell me about my responsibility to the place as a native Hawaiian. Not only is Waikiki not beyond redemption but it is our responsibility as the host culture to take care of it, to nurture it, to be part of the solution, and to respect our ancestors by not abandoning them. Waikiki was, is, and always will be a Hawaiian place.
It is unfortunate that of all the players, the host communities have the smallest voice and are not necessarily the direct beneficiaries of tourism. Yet they are the ones being asked to share themselves, their families and their lives, with unrelenting waves of strangers. For the most part they have no choice but to live in its onslaught and its wake. They usually have to struggle for attention even from their own government representatives. Local people are often little more than passive pawns, often bewildered by what’s happening around them. Even if they like the ways their world is changing, it still happens without their permission or their control. And if you don’t like it what can you do?
The ho`okipa model insures that the host culture is provided a seat at the table. It advocates inclusiveness in planning the destination and it recognizes that the host has something important to contribute. I would be stunned should there ever be created a Hawaiian seat on the Hawai`i Tourism Authority, and I was not surprised that the one seat allocated to a “community” representative was non-voting. This is the arrogance that makes it hard to sustain goodwill.
Another finding we make about the business model as it relates to the relationship between the place, the guest, and the host population is that the more mature a destination becomes the more the hosts are displaced. The result? No one who works in the destination’s center lives in the destination’s center. This is what constitutes a theme park.
For the Hawaiian as host it is very difficult to sustain Hawaiian culture in a destination that has few or no Hawaiians. It is equally difficult to sustain Hawaiian culture in a destination that offers few opportunities for Hawaiian cultural practitioners.
Real Host vs. Surrogate Host
There was a time in the early evolution of tourism in Hawai`i when the community was directly connected to the visitor population. There was an absence of the sophisticated layers of marketing ploys, travel desks, destination management companies, and so forth to control a visitor’s time and money. Visitors would leave their hotel rooms and set out on self-discovery journeys relying on local people for their information – and so it followed that they would end up where local people go. This process afforded them access to high quality experiences because – and this is very important – it afforded local people the opportunity to engage and do what comes so naturally to us: to be gracious and exercise our considerable hosting skills. These were 5-star and diamond experiences. These were genuine exchanges of value between the host and the hosted. The host was able to greet the visitors with dignity and on the host’s terms. The exchanges were magic. This was definitely a best practice model of the convergence of guest, host, and place. It was multiplied by hundreds of experiences and gave the destination tremendous market value. It also made the host feel franchised and included in an important way in the operating paradigm.
But then, as we tinkered further with this business of tourism, there arose a corporate interface that shielded the visitor from the host. The intervention of the institutions of corporate tourism yielded a surrogate host. This interface of travel desks, managed vacations, itinerary control purchases, ground transport competition, tour packaging, and so forth, createsd an industry phenomena that began to hold the visitor hostage to the menu of choices and managed experiences only they create and sell. Corporate paid advertising dominates visitor choices by dominating the information management system that excludes the once gracious host community from engaging the visitor directly. A granite wall of commerce now stands between the host and the hosted. On one side, the marketers and corporate vendors and on the other, the host community. Access to community driven experiences and encounters is only possible by paying a commission. The host culture is abruptly disconnected from the visitor market.
There may be an important role for government here - perhaps through the Hawai`i Tourism Authority. I envision a non-advertising driven information management program that posts themed menus in various media formats. It would feature cultural encounter opportunities that give the visitor alternative community-driven and community-hosted experiences. Our organization is seriously considering such an information management program. The goals would be (a) to direct locals and visitors to Hawaiian experiences, and (b) to publish a comprehensive directory of Hawaiian resources for visitor industry organizations who are looking to engage the Hawaiian community.
In closing, I am optimistic. I am optimistic that the aloha spirit is alive and well. That the culture continues to flourish, and that we will eventually prevail in connecting ourselves to the market. That we have much to offer this industry and stand ready to help anyone willing to help us.
We understand the realities of the challenge, but we are a great people with a history of meeting great challenges. We are a culture who navigated, explored, and discovered every atoll and piece of land, scattered over thousands of square miles of open ocean. We did it without compass and sextant. We did it by constructing great oceangoing vessels that are engineering marvels of nautical design. We did it by committing to memory the rising and falling of stars and marking their positions on the horizon as they rotated around the earth’s sphere. We navigated on ships without jib or stabilizing keel and yet were able to pinpoint landfall over a journey of several thousand miles. We accomplished all this and ceased all voyages of discovery 500 years before the Vikings. I’m confident that we will rise to this challenge.
I sincerely thank you for your attention. Mahalo no. Aloha no. Me ke aloha pumehana.
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