Welina ke aloha e na mamo o ka honua nei, e na malihini a me na kama‘aina kekahi. Welcome, visitors and locals alike.
Our culture and identity as Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) is our legacy and our future. We have created Ka Welina Network to share our culture with visitors to Hawai‘i in a way that will perpetuate our traditions, strengthen our communities, protect our sacred sites, and create real connections with people from around the world.
Ka Welina Network is a group of Maoli hosts who are turning the concept of tourism on its head, by focusing on Maoli communities, values, and goals, and not on growth, corporate profits or staged tourism experiences. It’s about developing healthy communities that may choose to share their culture with visitors as part of a sustainable model.
About Ka Welina Network
Ke Kono a ke Aloha
What is a “host?” What is a “visitor?” What is the relationship between these two, expressed in a way that acknowledges and honors both? What is the significance of this relationship for hosts and visitors who would like to share authentic and meaningful experiences?
Please join us as we step entirely outside of the conceptual box of tourism to explore how the relationship between hosts and visitors can become a connection that goes far beyond the superficialities of commercial tourism.
In Hawaii, the development of the tourism “industry” completely bypassed the traditional relationship between host and visitor, creating instead a layer of stand-in “hosts” (hotels and tour companies) that have tended to favor the needs and desires of the visitor over the needs of the true hosts, the members of the host culture, the kanaka Maoli.
While this profit-driven approach has produced an economy that has led to great prosperity for some, the impact on the ‘aina (the land, sea and environment) the Hawaiian culture and Maoli communities has been staggeringly destructive.
However, the Polynesian tradition of greeting and hosting visitors still lives in Hawaii – the real Hawaii that can be found beneath the illusory façade of a carefree tourist paradise that is the Hawaii visitor industry’s marketing presentation to the world.
The original people of Hawaii are known as “kanaka Maoli.” These are a people with ‘ohana (family) ties to everything surrounding them, particularly the ‘aina (land). As a visitor you will be embraced as a member of this ‘ohana. ‘Ohana carries with it the responsibility to “Aloha ‘Aina” (Love the Land), “Malama ‘Aina” (Care for the Land), and to Aloha and Malama ‘Ohana (Love and Care for Family). Like the never-ending relationship between the kanaka Maoli and the ‘aina, the kinship between you, your ‘ohana, and the ‘aina lives on forever. Love, respect, and care for your ‘ohana and you will have an experience of a lifetime.
Ka Welina Network is a group of Maoli hosts who have joined together in an initiative that essentially turns the dominant Hawaii tourism model on its head, focusing not on growth, corporate profits and staged tourism experiences, but instead on Maoli communities and their own values, goals and objectives. It’s about developing sustainable communities that may choose to share their culture with visitors as part of the model for sustainability.
In this “real Hawaii,” there are Maoli hosts – organizations, communities, families – who personify the traditional values of hospitality. These hosts wish to invite visitors to come and be part of their extended ‘ohana – to share, learn, and begin to understand life in Hawai‘i from the lens of kanaka Maoli. Therein lies the true value of hosts and visitors engaging with one another: the relationship that is created in the process.
And by practicing this model when they return home, visitors are encouraged to expand on the relationship, building a worldwide network of people who understand and honor the ancient values of hospitality, entwined with other principles that regard sense of place, stewardship of land, sea, and people, reciprocity, balance and cooperation as the guiding ideals.
Welina is, like aloha, a traditional term that expresses welcome and hospitality. In these pages, you will be welcomed to have a peek into Hawaiian communities who may be interested in inviting you to come and experience their world. Come, explore . . . and know that if you receive an invitation from one of these hosts, ke kono a ke aloha – it is an invitation of love.
Background: The Community-based Host-Visitor Concept
In 2006, the Pasifika Foundation Hawaii board entered into a series of conversations seeking to define a new way to look at what is now termed the “visitor industry.” The widespread use of the word “industry” carries with it an attitude of commodification, a perspective in which visitors, their experiences in Hawaii, and those that participate in providing those experiences, are all reduced to the elements of a financial equation.
What, we asked, might tourism look like in Hawaii today if, instead of being based primarily on Western values of profit and ever-increasing volume, the activity of hosting visitors were instead founded on Hawaiian values?
Currently, there is a profound divergence of opinion in Hawaii about what tourism is and what its effects are. To some, it is the State’s leading economic driver, providing nearly 30% of the State’s revenue. To others it represents a development tool that favors the needs and desires of the visitor over the needs of the resident and exploits Hawaii’s natural resources, its host community and their culture.
This “love-hate” relationship is one of many symptoms of what the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) acknowledges in its 2005 State Tourism Strategic Plan to be a fundamental “disconnect” between the industry and the Native Hawaiian culture and community.
As PFH dug deeper into the issue, some persistent themes began to emerge.
For decades, the prevailing business model has catered to the fickle needs of a traveler seeking leisure, recreation and entertainment, sand and surf, sun and fun. What began long ago as a practice of travelers visiting and engaging their hosts by residing with them and abiding by the customs and practices of the place, tourism has devolved into an impersonal experience where intimate contact and relationships with the host community are almost non-existent and managed by a wall of commerce where the traveler no longer subscribes to the customs of the place but has become “accustomed” to “customized” experiences.
This prevailing model has turned a once welcoming hosting culture into a reluctant service-oriented community where the host is treated like a servant who in turn is expected to deliver well choreographed experiences that are more contrived than genuine, and where sense-of-place is valued less than the mechanics and standard operating procedures associated with brand recognition. In short, the prevailing customer-focused paradigm has not only fostered a dynamic that compromises the identity of the place – Hawai‘i – but manages to undermine the dignity and integrity of Hawaii’s host culture – kanaka Maoli – as well.
What sort of model, we asked, might put the focus back on the needs and desires of the host community, thus promoting Maoli community health as a primary goal? What processes would ensure that cultural experiences are authentic and appropriate? Which approaches would reflect respect of place and promote stewardship of the ‘aina? What models prioritize relationship and reciprocity?
Two answers became clear – 1) that Maoli communities must be re-established as the hosts in the host-visitor equation and 2) that Maoli communities must define how this might be done. Thus the “Community-based Host-Visitor (CBHV)” concept was born.
The PFH board committed to developing CBHV model as an approach that would serve to begin to re-define tourism from a process aimed at only serving the visitor’s needs to one that is mutually beneficial for both host and guest, and where visitors can begin to understand life in Hawai‘i from the lens of kanaka Maoli. More importantly, the goal of the CBHV model is to provide Maoli hosts and communities with an opportunity to operate from a set of values and principles that enable them to share their history and culture with the visitor in ways that preserve community dignity and cultural integrity.
By enabling Maoli hosts to establish and execute cultural and place-based rules of engagement that culturally sensitize, socially enrich, and build meaningful relationships between Maoli host, the ‘aina and the visitor, the CBHV process aims to transform “tourism” into something much more meaningful for both hosts and visitors, where the outcome is not one of entertainment but is instead focused on learning, sharing, and making genuine connections with the place and its people.
This project began in 2006 and has been carried out in three phases: Phase 1, funded by HTA, involved a gathering of wisdom from around Pasifika to define the project. Leaders in indigenous grassroots community-based tourism from Tonga, Samoa and Aotearoa came to Hawaii for a series of meetings with the PFH board and other interested Maoli community members.
In Phase 2 we created an information system, using innovative participatory multimedia approaches, including GIS, to spatially and temporally visualize the current and potential framework for the development of a viable and sustainable community-based program of hosting visitors. This includes key social, cultural, economic and institutional factors that communities can consider in deciding how – or whether – they desire to engage with visitors. The information developed in this phase was analyzed to determine at least 15 communities in Hawai‘i with interest in or visible potential to develop a CBHV project. We inquired into existing and potential hosts (individuals, groups and organizations, communities) as well as places that are particularly rich in cultural practice.
The current Phase 3 is a two-year project, funded by the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), that builds on the previous two CBHV development phases.
In the first year of Phase 3, we held 16 community meetings around Hawaii in which Maoli community members shared their visions, ideas, challenges and concerns. During these meetings, the CBHV concept expanded and evolved and engaged hundreds of people in the process.
The community meetings touched on a number of issues, but central to the focus was the development of a general “visitor curriculum” – what kinds of things do the host communities feel that the visitors to know, prior to their visit, in order for the community to share its assets in the way the community desires?
Another key issue was that of a “host template” – how does the community wish to manage hosting – screening, protocols, invitations, timing, capacity, resources and exchange of economic and social capital?
These elements and others became the basis of the creation of this new web-based interface for connecting hosts and visitors – Ka Welina Network.
Out of the series of community meetings, there emerged 17 communities interested in participating in CBHV network of hosts. From these, 6 were selected to be part of the current test phase of Ka Welina Network, which began on November 1 2009 and runs through June 2010. The other 11 communities are in the process of developing their projects and will come on-line at a later date.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What makes this project different from all the other tourism projects over the years that have been aimed at empowering native Hawaiians to take a greater role in tourism?
This project, in contrast to most other initiatives related to tourism, is actually not about tourism or about making tourism sustainable; it is about communities, and creating sustainable communities that may choose to share their culture with visitors as part of the model for sustainability. The key question being explored is how a host community may engage visitors from the outside, not for the benefit of the visitor, but for the benefit of the community?
When the Community-Based Host-Visitor project was launched, it began with a gathering of grassroots leaders from other islands of Pasifika (Samoa, Tonga and Aotearoa were represented) who had experience in village-based and community-based tourism, along with the Pasifika Foundation Hawai’i board and other interested kanaka Maoli. The week-long event was an extraordinary sharing of past challenges, successes and future directions and the project began to take shape out of the collective experiences, knowledge and wisdom of our Pasifika cousins and those of the Maoli participants.
This approach reflects PFH’s goal to strengthen the connections between the islands of Pasifika, including Hawaii, and to support and facilitate the self-determined efforts of all Pasifik peoples. Rather than rely on “solutions” from distant continents, we look to the rich, diverse, exploratory and adaptable cultural wisdom of Pasifika, and we are guided by the voice and vision and mana of this place and its peoples.
2. When you talk about “hosts,” are you talking about hosting people in my home? Is this a Maoli B&B project?
The term “host culture,” which generally means the dominant ethnicity or culture of a place, has been utilized in Hawaii, often by the tourism industry, to refer to kanaka Maoli. But the tourism industry has positioned itself as the pseudo-host, inviting through mass marketing and delivering through a wall of commerce that almost completely dis-engages the visitors from the host culture.
When was the last time any Maoli community invited 7 million people?
This project seeks to re-frame the term “host culture” to reflect other important attributes of a host. The host is the one who issues invitations and welcomes visitors, and chooses what part of their life they wish to share with those visitors. In the CBHV project, we are working with Maoli communities, organizations and families to create a way for hosts to invite visitors to share whatever cultural experience they might be offering.
In some cases, it may be the desire of the host to offer accommodations to visitors; some have camping facilities or other kinds of lodging for visitors. But that is not a key focus of this project. We are co-creating, with communities, a model in which the Maoli hosts define the rules of engagement with visitors from beginning to end – from first identifying how that engagement might benefit their community, to making invitations, welcoming the guest, and sharing what they choose to share.
3. How can our community get involved in this kind of project?
If you’d like us to come visit your community Hawai’i to talk about Ka Welina Network and the CBHV project and to share ideas about how this project might be of benefit to your community, please contact us!
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