Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 26, Number 9, 1 May 2009 — 'Be nice to the tourists' [ARTICLE]

'Be nice to the tourists'

I onee overheard one of my wives loeal friends tell her children, "Be niee to the tourists, they bring the money to our island!" And with the economy being so bad, many eompanies folding and government employees losing their jobs, the importance of her words has begun to sink in. But they really began to make sense while vacationing on the Big Island, when two groups of loeal adult males went out of their way to make known we were unweleome there. Even though the people who

worked at Hawaiian Airlines, Avis Rent A Car, Ken's House of Pancakes, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, the Sheraton Resort, the loeal supermarket, Rocky's restaurant, Subway, Longs and L&L Drive Inn were all very pleasant, I will not take my family back there again. So now I understand. It is important to treat the tourists well because tourists support all of those jobs at the places we visited. And the resort taxes are used to fund the government employee jobs. Maybe everyone ean learn from one loeal mother's words to her ehildren and "be niee to the tourists" because your friends, neighbors or family members might be depending on them for their livelihood. Jobn lngrahm Honolulu