As cadaver dogs and forensics teams continue their grisly search of charred Lahaina, state officials investigate why the island’s warning sirens weren’t activated and the Hawai’ian Electric Company girds for lawsuits over its failure to deenergize power lines that may have sparked last week’s fires, any number of “lessons” will be drawn from the tragedy. Most will be somewhat predictable; most will be viewed from afar as being of little broader relevance. How much, after all, can one of the world’s most remote archipelagoes teach the rest of us?
Yet to the extent that Hawai’i is emblematic of other tourist-driven economies on the mainland, the dispiriting answer is: quite a lot.
As the BBC News reported today, the fires have exacerbated an already festering divide between the haves and the have-nots, between the entitled and self-absorbed visitors from elsewhere and the impoverished locals whose economic survival depends on satisfying their guests’ whims. With roughly 80% of the state’s economy fueled by a so-called “visitor industry” that’s served by a largely captive workforce—there’s no hopping into a pick-up here to drive to the next state in search of a better job—Hawai’ian islanders have little choice but to suck it up and repress their frustrations and resentment. So even as Maui officials asked visitors to leave the island, and the Hawai’i Tourism Authority urged outsiders to steer clear for the next few weeks because “our collective resources and attention must be focused on the recovery of residents and communities that were forced to evacuate,” the tourists kept coming.
And the anger kept growing.
In that respect, the fires illuminated much more than a surprisingly flammable landscape: they also highlighted the disparities that exist throughout the U.S. wherever a lot of money has moved in to create affluent playgrounds. Maui’s acute housing crisis, which in its case means cramming multiple families into modest ranch-style homes with curtains or thin plywood walls for partitions, is replicated in other ways in Vail, the Berkshires, Jackson Hole or any other scenic area where housing gets snatched up for vacation homes and short-term rentals. And it’s not just housing costs that get boosted by a tourist-based economy—it’s everything, from groceries to hard goods to entertainment. Hawai’i is an even more extreme case because it’s an island, but the same dynamic is experienced in every community dependent on the “visitor industry.”
What’s the relevance in all this to the RV park and campground industry? Only this: as investor money has poured into the sector, an inordinate number of outsized projects involving hundreds of new RV and glamping sites have been proposed over the past couple of years, from KOA’s two-fer just outside Yosemite National Park, to the Kentucky Bluegrass Experience Resort, to a Roman-themed “resort” next to a brand new Caesars casino in southern Virginia, to name just a few. Virtually all have targeted areas that are down on their heels, holding out the allure of plentiful new jobs, fresh tax revenue and a shot in the arm to local businesses. Virtually all provoke local opposition, in some cases more spirited and better organized than in others, amid predictions of the increased traffic, noise and potential crime that such a tidal wave of visitors may be expected to bring. Some get blocked. Some don’t.
Of those that prevail, few become the economic salvation their supporters anticipated, even as many of the problems their detractors had foreseen come to pass. Yet that’s not the worst of it. While increased traffic, noise and disruption of rural tranquility are nothing to sneeze at, even the most ardent opponents of such megaprojects fail to understand the massive warping effect they have on an area’s social fabric, beside which everything else is mere inconvenience. It’s as though a black hole were to slip into nearby orbit, its gravitational pull distorting every preexisting relationship: of people to people, people to the environment, people to their political and economic institutions.
Hawai’i is an extreme example because of its isolation and the longevity of its subservience to the visitor industry, but the past week has ripped away the veil that screened the island built for visitors from the harsher version left to the Hawai’ians themselves. In the words of a 21-year-old Maui native interviewed by the BBC, “It’s all butterflies and rainbows when it comes to the tourism industry, but what’s really under it is kind of scary.” It is, and that should be an object lesson to the next planning board, zoning commission or county board of supervisors listening to the siren song of a mega-campground developer.
Aug. 17 postscript: An encouraging sign that people can stand up to an exploitative “visitor industry” has come out of Lamoine, Maine, where an Arizona-based corporation was proposing to build a subdivision of so-called “glamping domes.” Despite receiving planning board approval, the project was so out of whack with a fragile coastal environment and local sensibilities that grass-roots opposition quickly flourished, then grew irresistible.
Two nights ago, that groundswell manifested in an overwhelming 397-2 vote to impose a six-month moratorium on any new hotels, motels, resorts or glampgrounds while town planners address issues of overdevelopment “and protect the community’s rural character.” The town meeting turnout was the largest in anyone’s recollection, according to local residents.
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