The Economic Sustainability of Culture in Hawai’i: Tourists’ Willingness to Pay for Hawaiian Cultural Experiences

Gabriella Andrade,Holly Itoga,Cathrine Linnes,Joseph Lema,Jerome Agrusa

doi:10.3390/jrfm14090420

Abstract

Given the current travel restrictions with the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an unprecedented opportunity for Hawai’i to reexamine its current tourism offerings and establish a new approach to support a more authentic, cultural, and sustainable tourism for the U.S. domestic tourist market. As tourists from the continental U.S. are the largest source market for visitors to Hawai’i, the purpose of this study is to examine the trend towards an “authentic cultural” tourism experience and evaluate whether U.S. visitors will be willing to pay for a deeper integration and representation of Hawaiian culture in tourism offerings. The contingent valuation method (CVM) was adopted to quantify the willingness to pay (WTP) more by the tourists to Hawaii in order to experience a more “authentic Hawaiian cultural experience” as well as “sustainable experiences”. Differences between returning and first-time visitors were considered. This study focused on continental U.S. visitors’ perceptions of Hawaiian culture and the sustainability of Hawaiian tourism products, as well as the assessment of locally grown food and tourists’ willingness to pay extra for these tourism products and experiences. The contingent valuation survey demonstrated that continental U.S. travelers were supportive of an additional fee in order to experience authentic Hawaiian cultural and tourism experiences designed and/or facilitated by Native Hawaiians. In addition, U.S. visitors were also supportive of paying additional fees for activities or experiences to support sustainable tourism in Hawai’i, including paying more for locally grown food, indicating that they would be willing to increase their restaurant/hotel food bill in order to support the Hawaii’s local farming industry. The results of this study demonstrate that there are economic opportunities to further integrate Hawaiian culture and sustainability into the experience of visitors, and that U.S. visitors are willing to support these cultural activities financially.

Highlights

This study aims to fill a gap in existing literature by examining the perceptions of Hawaiian culture among U.S visitors to Hawai’i, along with their willingness to pay for Hawaiian culture, in an effort to support more sustainable tourism practices in the future
The purpose of this study is to examine the trend towards an “authentic” and sustainable tourism experience, and to evaluate whether there is a U.S visitor demand and willingness to pay for a deeper integration and representation of Hawaiian culture in the tourism offerings of Hawai’i, along with whether these offerings can be financially sustainable
A contingent valuation survey instrument was distributed to U.S citizens via Momentive, designed around four specific research questions: “Are continental U.S visitors interested in Hawaiian Culture?”; “Are visitors from the continental U.S interested in tourism experiences designed and/or facilitated by Native Hawaiians?”; “Are U.S visitors willing to increase their expenditures (WTP) to support culturally respectful tourism experiences in Hawai’i?”; and “Are U.S visitors willing to increase their expenditures (WTP) to support sustainable tourism experiences in Hawai’i?”

Summary

Introduction

The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the world economy, and the global tourism industry has not been exempt from this. Many travel destinations have struggled amidst the economic volatility and continued uncertainty caused by this disease. Despite the unprecedented challenge caused by COVID-19, numerous tourism researchers have identified the current crisis as an opportunity to promote more sustainable practices (Chang et al 2020; Galvani 2020; Niewiadomski 2020). The current COVID-19 pandemic presents a considerable opportunity for building and delivering more authentic cultural tourism practices that are economically sustainable and global in scale. At the time of writing this research paper, there is still limited research as to how specific destinations are working towards planning and delivering authentic cultural tourism practices that are economically sustainable

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