Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 6, 1 June 2015 — Globalism, the new reality [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Globalism, the new reality

Globalism speaks to the phenomenon of the merging of the world's capital markets into one big marketplace of a eomplex international tapestry of corporate conglomerates. Globalism thrives on eommunications technology that makes it possible to carry on every conceivable social, poliheal and eeonomie transaehon at the speed of light to

and from anywhere in the world. Add transportation technology that ean take us anywhere on earth in one day. The good news is we have so shrunk the world that places that used to be difficult to access are now totally accessible. The bad news is that places that used to be difficult to access are now totally accessible. An example of good news is eommunications technology wielded to grow small businesses yielding eeonomie prosperity for small entrepreneurs around the world who ean access the global marketplace by bypassing expensive gatekeeper systems of mass media. YouTube has been phenomenal in launching spectacular careers overnight in rags to riches stories told simply by people with laptops and Internet eonnections. But globalism also springs forth a concentration of unprecedented eeonomie power that hovers over the world's communities like a foreboding spaceship ready to descend on an unsuspecting population as they sleep. The dark side of globalism speaks to the ease with whieh the most far-flung communities situated thousands of miles from a corporate boardroom ean

be instantly impacted by decisions made by total strangers with no emotional connection to the people who live there, and whose measure of success is narrowed to a dispassionate quarterly review of the corporate spreadsheet. No person, village, town, city, state or nation is outside the shadow of globalization. Of all the examples of a growth model being dictated by forces far removed from the impacted community, Hawai'i is a classic

case study. Our No. 1 industry is tourism to the tune of $12 billion annually. Hawai'i tourism began as a simple enough business model. The early days found our tourism businesses owned and operated by loeal people. The construct of the up close and personal exchange between guest and host was central to the quality of the visitor experience. But dramatic growth inevitably lured a stream of offshore investors. And one day we woke up to flnd that, with the exception of the Outrigger Hotels, not one major hotel ehain was locally owned. Aloha was no longer an experience, it was a brand. Boardroom decisions that dictated industry growth shifted to far away linaneial centers. Hawai'i had become like a movie with the script being written somewhere else. Today, we struggle with a love-hate relationship with tourism. It's in our DNA to be gracious hosts. It confuses us to have not so good feelings about welcoming visitors because industry growth seems to have extracted a high price on our quality of life that we measure by more than the quarterly spreadsheet. ■

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