Last Wednesday, a day after the wildfires, the county asked visitors to leave Lahaina and the island as a whole as soon as possible.
Officials soon urged people to avoid the island entirely, except for essential travel. “In the days and weeks ahead, our collective resources and attention must be focused on the recovery of residents and communities that were forced to evacuate,” the Hawaii Tourism Authority said.
Many travellers heeded the advice. In the immediate aftermath of the fires, some 46,000 people left the island.
But thousands did not. Some ignored requests to leave Maui immediately, while others flew in after the fire - decisions that have angered some.
“If this was happening to your hometown, would you want us to come?” said resident Chuck Enomoto. “We need to take care of our own first.”
As it is with most things, the average local is not benefitting from the commercialization of their communities as much as external corporations and wealthy investors.
I disagree. Tourists bring money that goes into sales tax and local businesses that are staffed by average locals.
That would be neat if the businesses were actually owned by the locals, rather than rich fucks like Larry Edison
Then you would just have a few wealthy on the island? Unless you think they would actually pay or hire differently.
I would much rather not have any rich fuck owning >90% of the island. Thank you very much.
What is it was a local rich fuck? Seems like the whole “outsider” thing is the issue.
“What if it…”. Bro, just stop. They are both bad, but having a complete outsider own your island is by far the worse one.