ADRIAN MA, HOST:
For the first time in more than a decade, the Burning Man arts festival has failed to sell out, and we'll hear more about why in a minute. But first, in the wake of the pandemic, travel has come roaring back. And all that tourism has an impact on our planet and especially on the people who live and work in those destinations.
A new podcast from WHYY and PRX called Peak Travel looks at that impact, and host Tariro Mzezewa examines how our travel behaviors are shaped by the forces around us - technology, global events, culture and tradition. Where else to begin but in a place so many of us consider a paradise? Hawaii. It's been one year since a devastating fire ripped through Maui's historic Lahaina. Since then, the island's relationship with the tourism industry has only become more thorny and complicated.
Savannah Harriman-Pote is a reporter from Hawaii, and she takes it from here.
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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #1: Oh, my gosh. Look at the harbor.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #2: Devastation and heartbreak as you saw parts of historic Lahaina town destroyed as wind-whipped wildfires continue to rage.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #3: Erupted so suddenly, people had to run into the ocean to escape the fire and then later be rescued.
SAVANNAH HARRIMAN-POTE, BYLINE: The night we were seeing all these fires break out, we had incredibly windy conditions. Where I lived in Honolulu, I had this big monkey pod tree outside of my window, and as I was falling asleep, I just remember hearing it lashing against the building, lashing back and forth. We got the call early in the morning that there had been a fire that had impacted Lahaina.
There's just sometimes kind of a dawning realization that it's going to be a very different kind of day than you were expecting to have. And so as we were getting more information about how many buildings were destroyed and then about the fact that people were dying, that was when we, I think, began to realize that it wasn't just going to be a different kind of day but a different kind of week, month, probably a different kind of Hawaii.
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TARIRO MZEZEWA, BYLINE: What happens when a deadly natural disaster strikes a popular tourist destination, and how does it affect the people who call that place home? Maui's residents lived through this in August 2023, when wildfires swept across Lahaina, a town on the western part of the island. It engulfed businesses and homes and killed more than 100 people. In the middle of the devastation, tourists kept coming to the island.
This is Peak Travel, a new podcast from WHYY about how travel shapes local communities around the world. We'll share the wonder that comes with exploring new places, as well as the harm that our travel habits can cause, and we'll try to figure out how we can do it better.
I'm your host, Tariro Mzezewa. I'm from Zimbabwe. I grew up near Washington, D.C. And I've lived in LA, Rome, New York and Atlanta. Travel is part of who I am. My earliest memories are road tripping from Harare to Durban with my family, standing in front of Victoria Falls in total awe, and later getting on a plane to leave an increasingly unstable country with the hope of finding opportunity in another.
In my work as a travel journalist, I've talked to influencers, politicians and leaders of tourism boards. I've also interviewed performers on cruise ships, hotel housekeepers and airport restaurant workers. I've come to realize that, though travel can offer personal fulfillment, it often comes at a cost.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: What is a vacation? It's having everything you've ever dreamed of.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We were dining right on the beach.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: I wanted a romantic getaway.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: All included, all unlimited.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Book the vacation of your dreams. Call your travel agent.
MZEZEWA: The truth is the modern-day travel industry is selling us a fantasy - bungalows in the Maldives, bamboo treehouses in Bali or bottomless rum and Cokes at all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean. Worse yet, must-see lists and TikTok trends are leading us all to the same angel wing murals and pastel-colored homes. But these top 10 lists have a real impact on people's livelihoods and the planet. So what can we do about it?
One of the most significant ways that tourism affects a place like Hawaii is in its housing. Decades of tourism have created a housing crisis where costs are high and there isn't enough to go around. After the devastation of the fires on Maui, it's gotten even worse.
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MZEZEWA: Savannah Harriman-Pote, a reporter from Hawaii, is walking along Kaanapali Beach, a popular tourist spot on Maui. It's a fall day, just a few months after a wildfire ripped through the neighboring town of Lahaina.
HARRIMAN-POTE: It was this really, really stormy, overcast day. And it was turning both the sky and then the ocean this, like, steely, steely gray.
MZEZEWA: Still, the beach is crowded. Towels and umbrellas have been set out. On this day, the presence of so many people feels eerie.
HARRIMAN-POTE: And coming around, the first thing that I see is a Hawaiian flag, and then a couple of feet over, another Hawaiian flag, and then another and then another.
MZEZEWA: The flags are spread out across the sand among the tourists. They were placed there by a local activist group. Some of the flags are upside-down. a signal that Hawaii and its people are in distress.
HARRIMAN-POTE: The leaders of Lahaina Strong had put up one Hawaiian flag for every person who was lost in the fire.
MZEZEWA: When Savannah returned to Maui, she was disturbed by what she saw.
HARRIMAN-POTE: Before you get to Kaanapali, you drive through Lahaina. And most of the area is closed off. You can see a bit of it from the road of the remains of the town that were burned. You can see the charred trees. You can see the remains of the harbor. And then you come out along that coast, and you drive just a couple of miles up to Kaanapali, where these resorts are placed.
And the first thing I noticed was green - green golf courses, green trees, water features, just this little oasis, which is exactly what you would expect from from a tropical paradise. It's exactly what you would want if you were coming to visit. But in the context of the rest of the island of Maui and the fires that took place last summer, it feels really unsettling.
MZEZEWA: In the days following the fire, many of Hawaii's residents and some of its leaders urged tourists not to come to the island. They hoped that empty hotels and short-term rentals could be given to residents who had lost their homes. But not long after...
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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #4: Tourism to the rest of West Maui reopened today.
UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #5: The Hawaii Tourism Authority is working to bring back visitors to Maui. HTA approved $2.6 million in funding.
MZEZEWA: Josh Green, the governor of Hawaii, made the decision to allow tourists back.
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JOSH GREEN: Right now, I want to speak to the world when I say this. All of the other areas of Maui, friends, and the rest of Hawaii are safe. When you come, you will support our local economy and help speed the recovery of the people that are suffering right now.
MZEZEWA: But Savanah wasn't seeing that support. She saw something quite different.
HARRIMAN-POTE: You're seeing, you know, the pools out front, people on their vacations walking around with these, like, one-foot-tall margaritas, having just, I'm sure, a wonderful time.
MZEZEWA: That only made an already difficult time more challenging, including for Keoni Rawlins-Fernandez, councilmember for the Maui County Council.
KEANI RAWLINS-FERNANDEZ: By reopening West Maui, what we've seen is tourists using Lahaina's ashes as a backdrop for their photos to post online.
MZEZEWA: Keani was upset when she heard the governor was already welcoming people back. After all, many of the island's own residents hadn't secured essentials like permanent housing or work, let alone begun to heal from the loss of their community. She wanted to learn more.
RAWLINS-FERNANDEZ: We held a meeting in West Maui to hear directly from the community, and we heard over 10 hours of testimony.
MZEZEWA: The testimony was chilling.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: My ohana have lived in Lahaina for generations. I'm here today because of them and many, many more. Tourists should be the very least of our worries in our time of grief.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: We cannot go back to my mom's house because her house is burnt down. I can't go to my sister's house because her house is burnt down, too.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #7: All of my life, I've seen as being treated as second-class citizens in our own home, and we're told that we need these outsiders to survive. And it is not true. It is not true.
MZEZEWA: Keani took action.
RAWLINS-FERNANDEZ: It became clear that we needed to delay the opening of tourism in West Maui for the health and safety of our people. And so immediately after that meeting, I let staff know that I would be drafting a resolution for posting the next day.
MZEZEWA: She urged the governor to delay the reopening of the island to tourists in order to protect residents. Many of their homes had burned down, and they would be forced to return to work in the very same industry that displaced them.
MA: That was an excerpt from the Peak Travel podcast from WHYY and PRX. You can find it wherever you get podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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