Letters to the Editor: How tourism ruins life for locals, and not just in Hawaii

To the editor: Hawaiians are naturally conflicted about tourism. They should be. Tourism is a cancer that destroys the quality of life for locals so some carpetbaggers can make money.

Tourism is clearly not a “clean” industry. People do not just show up, spend their dough and leave. Instead, they show up, and then if they have more money than the locals do, they move in and tell a friend.

Tourism attracts people to a given area, and developers build homes for them, usually pricing out the locals.

My hometown of Ventura became a tourist destination in the early 1980s. Since then, the rent and population have increased, and now we have traffic jams and the opportunity to pay to park at our own beaches.

The hospitality industry does create jobs — mostly low-wage ones — and the taxes from it are often used to mitigate the problems caused by tourism in the first place.

More than 120 years ago, American business interests took over Hawaii. Ask a native Hawaiian how they like tourism. They have notions of hospitality that go way back, but also consider what happened to one of the earliest “tourists” to Hawaii, Capt. James Cook.

Bill Locey, Oak View