Tourism impact study is crucial planning tool

Following a recent vacation in the Islands, well-known Boston Globe writer Ellen Goodman wrote a column noting Hawai'i's growing concern about the environmental and social costs of tourism.

She specifically mentioned the recent lawsuit by the Sierra Club demanding environmental impact statements on state spending to promote tourism. But more generally, she said, both visitors and residents alike wonder whether the day will come when tourism growth becomes more than the Islands can handle.

It is an old question, and one that surges to the front whenever visitor arrivals are up and the pressure mounts.

Rather than simply ask the question over and over again, the Cayetano administration this year has proposed a study that will help both critics and supporters of tourism come to concrete answers.

It has proposed a $1.2 million study of tourism's impact on a wide spectrum of the state's natural and manmade resources. The goal would not be to come up with a "magic number" of visitors that Hawai'i can comfortably carry. Rather, it would establish benchmarks at which resources become overrun.

In a year when money is short, there will be strong temptation to put this study off for another day. That would be a mistake. This study, done right, will help ensure that tourism continues to contribute to our way of life, rather than harm it. It should be approved.