Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 5, 1 May 2011 — Perpetuating culture through Community Tourism [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Perpetuating culture through Community Tourism

Without culture, the tenn Hawaiian has little meaning. We must nurture our living keepers of the culture -

kumu hula, chanters, navigators and practitioners in all the arts and sciences that define us as a people. One way to do that is through Conununity Tourism. Hawai'i struggles with its love-hate relationship with tourism because it often comes at the expense of our places and people in what seems like an unequal exchange of value. The good news is there are models

oi iounsm mai aciuaiiy resonaie well with conununities - that support and nurture cultural spaces, traditions and shared prosperity. Conununity Tourism is small-scale tourism that springs directly from a conununity willing to share itself with visitors. It is hometown tourism with all the rough edges, whieh is what gives it compelling ehann and authenticity. It is up close and personal, yet it is a daytime activity. Visitors return to their resorts at night, leaving the conununity to breathe. Conununity Tourism is a mix of experiences created and operated by loeal, traditional or indigenous peoples to enhanee their quality of life, protect and restore their environmental and cultural assets, and engage visitors in meaningful ways. It often includes watking tours, home and farm visits, storefront museums, recreational offerings, craft cooperatives, nature and wildlife treks, cultural performances, food experiences, lectures on loeal culture and history, healing and health services, storytelling and more. In urban neighborhoods, rural conununities and wilderness areas, Community Tourism ean provide a powerful eeonomie development strategy to generate more revenue for loeal people. Conununity Tourism invites far more intimacy in the relationship between host and guest than is normally afforded. It features authentic and genuine experiences for the guest, because it is activity that exists for its own sake and

is not constructed specifically to entertain a stranger. It is a conununity sharing its real culture by the people who practice it. The very nature of Conununity Tourism places boundaries

and limitations on how many visitors ean be accommodated so that the sense of plaee is not overwhelmed, and the ratio between the loeal population and the visitors remains in halanee. Conununity Tourism is a sustainable activity. Largescale tourism often results in creating more problems for a conununity than it solves and

ean be particularly damaging to its culture, traditions, customs and sense of plaee. Community Tourism is about creating a direct connection between the plaee, the people who live there and the visitor. It bypasses gatekeeper systems of travel desks and destination management companies that separate the host from the hosted. Conununity Tourism makes the plaee, not the visitor, the center of care and attention, recognizing this as the best way to honor the visitor. Conununity Tourism is a conununity celebrating its own greatness and inviting strangers to join the celebration. While it is about preserving heritage, it is also about the evolution of a heritage. It need not freeze landscapes or cultural practices and traditions. It is about honoring the past and connecting it to the future in a dynamic evolution of the living culture of the loeal populahon - celebrating where we eame from, defining who we are in the present and crafting new dreams that transition us into the future. In the end, Conununity Tourism is about preserving the dignity of a people willing to open their hearts to strangers from other places. As the 'ōlelo no'eau says, "O ke aloha ke kuleana o kāhi malihini" - love is the host in strange lands. ■ Whal is your mana'o on Community Tourism? To contact me on this or any other topic, email PeterAoha@ gmail. eom, go to www.facebook.com/peterapo, ortweet @peterapo.

PetEr Apo TrustEE, O'ahu