Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 1991 — Kanahele joins HVB board [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kanahele joins HVB board

By Christina Zarobe Assistant Editor

In Hawaiian culture, if you're invited to someone's house for dinner and the poi sticks to your finger, you've been given the best your host has to offer. The adage is a simple one about extending warmth and weleome to a guest. Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) Trustee Kamaki Kanahele believes the same principle ean be applied to the visitors who flock to the shores of Hawai'i. And as a newly selected member of the Hawai'i Visitors Bureau (HVB) Board of Directors Kanahele will have the opportunity to help shape the direction tourism takes in the islands and convey the Native Hawaiian perspective on the industry. "I think the average tourist needs to be educated on our kingdom, whieh onee was in Hawai'i, on its history and on its people whieh are not now being correctly taught," he said during a recent interview at his OHA office in Honolulu.

Kanahele views those who vacation on the islands in two groups — the tourist and the visitor. "I think I appreciate the word visitors more than tourist because the visitor is someone who wants 1

to enjoy . . . "I think the tourist has the tendency to want to just pass through, use it and leave." Kanahele believes that Hawaiians are fiercely proud of their neh culture, but willing to share their traditions with outsiders. The relationship,

however, between Native Hawaiians and visitors should be one of "give and take." "The visitor comes and wants to know the people, its history, what makes it beautiful, be willing to share where they are from, to give and take with the people of Hawai'i, be willing to take care of the seas and skies and know that when we continued page 4 ' — _ -- - i

Kamaki Kanahele

Kanahele

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eome (to their home), we will eome as a visitor." As one of 50 members, Kanahele said he wants to inform his colleagues on the HVB Board of Directors that "we need to transform the tourists into visitors when they get off the plane. "lt's no different from me as a Hawaiian going to Indiana. It's as if I was going to a friend's house," he said in measured statements, periodically

reflecting on a point before continuing. The HVB board is divided into various categories of representatives — the visitor industry, the general community (under whieh Kanahele was selected), organized labor, and the general business community, according to Stanley Hong, president of the HVB. "The point is that tourism is an industry that permeates the whole community," Hong said. "It's the business of everyone so we want the input of everyone." The HVB has 3,000 members and is a private, non-profit agency whieh has a contract with the state to market and represent Hawai'i worldwide, Hong explained. Those members, who work in , banks and hotels and other fields, volunteer on various HVB committees such as marketing and communications. Hong, who has served as president of HVB since 1984, described the situation as the state and private sector creating a partnership with the HVB as the "catalyst." "We are very cognizant of the fact that there are varying points of view on tourism in the community," he said. "Kamaki would play a very positive role by articulating the view of OHA and the Hawaiian people." On tourism, though, Kanahele holds

* developers responsible for mueh of the damage, culturally and environmentally, that has ravaged Hawai'i. "I think development has not been kept in eheek and (we need to) understand how best to preserve what is left of Hawai'i so that the developers will realize that success in their efforts will depend on Hawai'i and its people, and not on construction and over-development." The laek of management in developing for tourism has left the state "over-dependent on the tourist." The trickle down eeonomie effect has been a skyrocketing cost of living in Hawai'i, he pointed out. "The end result is that in 1991 the requirements for the people of Hawai'i in order to survive are two or three jobs, living with relatives, moving away from Hawai'i in order to own a house » As a member of the HVB Board of Directors, Kanahele said he hopes to convey the importance of "interpreting and translating" to visitors the traditional culture rather than a "plastic" version of Hawai'i. "(And) to have both the malihini (foreigner) and kama'aina (resident) accountable for the preservation and perpetuation of Hawai'i in its beauty, land and culture."

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