Years ago, when my family lived in Hong Kong, we were touring schools for our kids. One admissions officer told us, with a perfectly straight face, "We only want the right kind of children." I probably should have smiled politely and moved on. Instead, I asked, "What exactly does a wrong six-year-old look like?" Shockingly, we didn't get in.
I've thought about that conversation a lot lately because I hear a remarkably similar phrase every time Hawaiʻi debates tourism.
We need the "right kind" of visitor.
Sometimes it's the "mindful visitor." Sometimes it's the "high-value traveler." Lately, it's become "luxury traveler." Different buzzword, same sorting exercise. It sounds sophisticated, plays well in speeches and looks great in policy papers. It also falls apart the moment you ask a simple question:
Who exactly are we excluding?
That is where Hawaiʻi's luxury tourism conversation starts to fall apart.
Yes, luxury hotels are doing extremely well. No argument there. Statewide luxury average daily rates have hovered around $750 during the first part of 2026, an impressive figure by any measure.
But building a statewide tourism strategy around luxury travelers ignores a pretty inconvenient truth: roughly 82% of Hawaiʻi's hotel inventory is not luxury. True luxury represents maybe 18% of the market, depending on how generously you define it.
Let’s be real, Hawaiʻi is not Monaco. We are not St. Barts.
We are a broad-based visitor destination, with a hotel market that stretches from budget-friendly rooms and independent properties to major brands and some of the finest luxury resorts in the world. Most operators are not running Ritz-Carltons. They are running Courtyards, Hiltons, Outriggers, local independents, and dozens of other hotels that make up the backbone of Hawaiʻi's visitor industry.
Luxury is important, but it is not the whole business. Basing an entire tourism strategy around the luxury segment is a bit like a hotel revenue manager setting every room rate based on what the presidential suite sold for last night. Interesting data point. Terrible strategy.
Even if we wanted to pivot entirely toward luxury tourism, it's hard to see how the numbers work. Hawaiʻi doesn't have enough luxury inventory to absorb millions of additional affluent visitors, and there aren't millions of luxury travelers sitting on the sidelines waiting for an invitation. Luxury travel is a relatively small segment of the global market. The idea that we can simply replace large numbers of mainstream visitors with an equal number of luxury guests assumes a pool of travelers that simply doesn't exist.
The broader economy depends on volume and variety.
In 2024, Hawaiʻi welcomed roughly 9.7 million visitors who spent about $20.7 billion. Those dollars did not just land in luxury resorts. They spread throughout nearly every corner of Hawaiʻi's economy, flowing to restaurants, activity operators, surf instructors, musicians, florists, farmers, transportation companies, retail stores, housekeepers, maintenance firms, accountants, and thousands of small businesses that rarely appear in glossy tourism strategy presentations.
That is the part the luxury myth conveniently skips.
Tourism is not just a hotel room rate. It is an ecosystem.
A family staying at the Holiday Inn in Waikīkī may not sound as exciting in a policy speech as a "high-value visitor," but that family still eats at local restaurants, books activities, tips workers, pays taxes, shops at local businesses, and helps support the thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on tourism.
None of this means Hawaiʻi should chase more visitors forever.
Residents have legitimate concerns about overcrowding, housing, infrastructure, cultural preservation, and pressure on natural resources. Those concerns deserve serious attention. But pretending we can solve those problems by simply trading millions of regular visitors for a smaller number of wealthy ones is not strategy. It is wishful thinking based on flawed math.
The better conversation is not about finding the "right kind" of tourist. It is about building the right kind of visitor economy, one that works better for residents, businesses, and visitors alike. That means investing in infrastructure, supporting local businesses, improving transportation, protecting cultural and natural resources, and managing tourism more thoughtfully. The recently launched North Shore Huakaʻi Shuttle is a great example. It is about managing visitor movement more intelligently so tourism works better for everyone.
I think most would rather welcome a respectful family staying at a budget hotel than a billionaire treating Hawaiʻi like his private playground.
The issue should not be measured by net worth, but by impact, behavior, and whether our tourism system benefits residents as much as it serves visitors.
So yes, let’s invest in quality. Let’s raise standards. Let’s attract travelers who spend meaningfully and respect the place. Let’s improve the product where it needs improving.
But let’s not pretend Hawaiʻi can luxury-brand its way out of basic arithmetic.
At some point, the math wins.
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