Lee Cataluna: Weren’t we going to diversify our economy?

Whew! It’s a good thing that Hawaii diversified its local economy so that we’re not so wholly dependent on tourism, huh?

Wait, we did do that, yes? Because lawmakers, business leaders and economists have been talking about it for decades. It must have happened by now, right?

Wrong.

In the past several years, while the number of visitor arrivals was creeping ever closer to the 10-million-a- year-mark like some sort of glittery game show tote board, the talk of diversifying Hawaii’s economy got pretty quiet, perhaps drowned out by the visitor industry and all the owners of illegal vacation rentals screaming, “Whoo-hoo! We’re gonna be rich!”

It’s hard to think of making money doing anything else when making money off tourism is working so, so well … until it isn’t.

Hawaii has endured tourism disruptions in the past, both the gradual tapering off that comes with economic downturns and the abrupt shutdown that happened after 9/11. Each time the state is bruised by a tourism slump, there is a period of soul searching and reality checking followed by committees, commissions and entrepreneurial pep talks about how dangerous it is to rely on one industry to carry so much of Hawaii’s economic well-being.

There has been a long list of ideas generated during these periods of self-reflection: Hawaii as a center for wellness, Hawaii as a source of “neutraceuticals,” Hawaii as home to a space port, film production, astronomy, a telecommunications hub for the Pacific … There was even a plan years back to make Hawaii the growing and processing center of an international organic baby food company. There were goofy ideas, too, mixed in with the good stuff, and certainly some headway has been made in pursuing the sturdier alternatives, but we still have no reliable backups. We keep saying we’re gonna grow stuff, we’re gonna make stuff, we’re going to be the world center of fill-in-the-blank. Then tourism numbers pick up and everybody’s head turns away from the hard work of starting something new, and all entrepreneurial talent is focused instead on serving and selling to tourists.

The COVID-19 outbreak is affecting Hawaii in uneven ways. Ala Moana Center isn’t deserted, but it’s so quiet you can hear the water in the fountain. Kahala Mall, however, with its locally owned shops and devoted band of neighborhood regulars who use the indoor mall like personal office space, a conference room and walking path, is as busy as always. There are fewer tourists on the roads, but there’s still tourist traffic, as though what we’re seeing as a downturn is more of a return to what Hawaii is able to gracefully, realistically handle. This quarter will be labeled as disastrous, though, because of the expectations of so many more tourists coming here and the way Hawaii’s economy, instead of building up reliable alternatives, has built up around this one thing. Perhaps when a little time has passed and we start up the economic diversification talk again, while we think about growing alternatives, we also can talk about scaling back the tourism target numbers so that this kind of drop doesn’t hit so hard again.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.