Tourism industry juggernaut always possesses winning hand

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Sometimes it's hard to tell what kind of game they're playing.

You know there must be a game going on because only a game would explain $10 million in public money to promote tourism compared to $2 million for social services. A game must be afoot when the Legislature pays more attention to the school superintendent's indiscretion than to the needs of kids in public schools. And watching government officials give huge breaks to multimillion-dollar corporations so they can make more millions sure makes you think that someone is playing something.

Maybe it's a massive game of Jan Ken Po.

Not the souped-up, Augie and Lanai television version (though there are a number of brain busters and Jan Ken Po masters in our midst). No, this is Jan Ken Po with stakes much higher than Windward Mall dollars. Come up with the winning hand, and you get the key to the city, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, all the taxpayer dollars you need to successfully turn a profit for your shareholders.

In the version we played in the schoolyard, the rules were simple and there was always a winner: paper covers rock, rock beats scissors, scissors cuts paper.

The rules in the larger game are also simple, but the winner is always the same hand.

The tourist industry wins over local people. That's a given (and by local people, I mean all of us who call Hawai'i home). The tourist industry wins over environment. Environment wins over people, particularly when federal money is handed out. Local people win only when the game is played strictly for public appearances and not for actual monetary gain, or if it can somehow be spun up that though tourism won, it's not the big hotel owners but the little hotel workers who will actually reap the reward.

If you go to the state for money for a project, such as a pavilion, if it's a pavilion for endangered ducks you might get the money. If it's a pavilion for homeless people, you probably won't (and it won't matter because nobody will let you put up the pavilion in their neighborhood anyway). If it's a pavilion for a new high-tech business, they'll tell you they'll support it but don't count on any help.

If you say it's for tourism, you'll get the money and they'll all show up in their best aloha crisp to have their pictures taken at the ceremonial untying of the maile lei (and there will be speeches about how all the tourists are going to love learning about the extinct ducks.)

There's also an element of trumps here. Dengue is scary, but we're more afraid of the mail than of mosquitoes. Anthrax is scary, but we're more upset about overzealous and capricious security measures at Aloha Stadium than the lack of preventive measures in Hawai'i post offices. Traffic accidents are still the most deadly threat we face on a daily basis, but we let drunken drivers off the hook with a shrug and have very quickly forgotten about street racers.

And there's a bit of hanafuda influence.

Large corporations are like the gaji, the omnipotent joker in the deck that wins over all. The Food Bank's shelves are empty. That's serious. The hotel rooms are empty. That's more serious. Duty Free Shoppers' international corporate owners won't see quite the profit they were expecting. That calls for action from the governor.

There's no denying we're in crisis mode. It's a time when common sense is often eclipsed by panic and when appearances seem more important than reality. But if we can calm ourselves and move away from reactionary thinking into strategic planning, maybe we can quit playing games. Maybe we can win.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.