Socio-Cultural and Public Input Study

The purpose of the Socio-Cultural/Public Input component, undertaken by John Knox & Associates, was to assess key social and cultural impacts of tourism on Hawaii and to draw out the public’s opinions, concerns, appreciations and awareness of tourism’s impact on their lives and their communities. This component also organized the public meetings held by the project and established the Internet website used to provide information about the project to the community during most of the project period. The Socio-Cultural/Public Input component focused on the less measurable, more elusive social and cultural issues related to tourism that modeling and infrastructure measurement cannot fully capture.

The Socio-Cultural/Public Input study developed several critical components of the project’s final results. These included:

  • A Socio-Cultural Impact Report investigating evidence about the likely effects of tourism growth and change in social factors of concern to residents – e.g., crime, housing cost, Native Hawaiian issues, etc. This effort included assembling an expert panel of Native Hawaiian representatives to articulate the relationship between tourism and the Native Hawaiian community’s concerns and aspirations.
  • Assembling a Study Group of “stakeholders” from different interest groups – tourism, environmentalists, Native Hawaiians, labor, business, the non-profit sector and more, which meet during the life of the project. Despite the wide range of interest groups represented, the group formulated a proposal for “Sustainable Tourism Goals and Indicators” to maintain a balance between tourism and Hawaii’s economic, environmental, and social values.
  • A survey of residents in all counties to explore in greater depth how the balance between tourism’s economic benefits and resident’s quality of life can be reconciled.
  • Organizing and conducting public meetings on all islands to invite input into the purpose and goals of the project and to better understand the concerns of each community.
  • Developing and maintaining the project’s website and drafting the final summary report of the project.

The Socio-Cultural/Public Input team was headed by John M. Knox and Associates, Inc. (phone 808-523-1352 or e-mail [email protected]). Dr. Knox has prepared socio-economic and/or socio-cultural impact assessments for dozens of proposed Hawaii resort and other visitor industry activities over the past 25 years. Dr. Knox team included the research firm of Market Trends Pacific, Inc. (surveys),
Harvey A. Shapiro
, of Kokua Computing Systems in Honolulu (website design) and
Dr. Kem Lowry
chair of the University of Hawaii’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning (study group facilitation).