With monthly and midyear visitor arrivals topping expectations, there’s a good chance that Hawaii will hit its full-year forecast: a record-breaking 9.1 million visitors.

The climbing figures are prompting questions about tourism sustainability — a big-umbrella term inclusive of the industry’s effect on environment, economy and local communities.

The United Nations has designated 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. It estimates that there were 1.2 billion international travelers in 2015, nearly double the count from 2000. That tally is expected to grow to 1.8 billion by 2030.

Sustainability will figure prominently among issues slated for debate at the three-day Hawaii Tourism Authority’s Global Tourism Summit, which will get underway Sept. 19. Last year’s summit brought in attendees from 18 nations.

HTA President and CEO George D. Szigeti maintains that the U.N.’s proclamation underscores a sense of industry alignment. “Tourism supports economies everywhere,” Szigeti said. “The key thing is … finding the balance in which arrivals and spending are compatible with our natural resources and resident sentiment. … It’s all kind of intertwined.”

There are murmurs about capacity constraints — especially on Oahu, which, of course, sees the most tourism traffic. But Szigeti said given the industry’s ebb-and-flow, it would be extremely difficult to pinpoint any sort of saturation threshold and was unaware of any effort to do so. What’s more, he said, visitor accommodations are not maxed-out.

“Oahu has been doing very, very well. But I can tell you, speaking with my stakeholders, that we have room. We have our shoulder periods. … Oahu has been very busy and we’ve tried strategically to create more access to the neighbor islands, and that’s been well received. Each island has its own unique culture and activities and appeal points. So we try to manage growth through more neighbor island access.”

Tourism money funds needed upgrades

Tourism export receipts from Hawaii in 2016 added up to $15.6 billion, the highest visitor spending figure since the Great Recession, and HTA’s forecast sets this year’s expected spending figure at $16.2 billion. If the state hits its projections, 2017 would mark the sixth year in a row of visitor arrival and spending growth for the state.

However, Hawaii tourism’s all-time visitor spending high occurred in the late 1980s when annual spending in today’s dollars hit $18.3 billion, and visitor count had just topped 6 million, said Paul Brewbaker, principal of TZ Economics.

Some industry observers argue that seizing opportunity to accommodate more visitors could benefit the islands, if tourism dollars are managed effectively by the state. More tourism holds the potentials to bring us more jobs, better roads and schools as well as upgrades in natural resource stewardship. “One need not exclude the other,” Brewbaker said. “More tourism, more tourism receipts. More revenue would provide more financial resources.”

After all, Hawaii has few options, if any, that can control the flow of visitors. Unlike in some countries, the Aloha State is not authorized to set a limit on the number of people who can travel here, and cannot levy an entry tax. We can raise taxes on tourism, making it more expensive to visit; spend less on tourism promotion; or tighten land use and zoning laws.

Economic engine is also fragile

In the late ’80s, a push to cap rapid tourism growth led to development policies that essentially put the brakes on building accommodations but aimed to upgrade existing inventory. The strategy catered to high-end luxury travel, Brewbaker said. Public sentiment “rallied around the bumper-sticker economics of ‘More Dollars, Not More Visitors.’ They claimed that this was sustainable tourism. … It’s been 30 years. The outcome (for various market reasons) was more visitors, not more dollars.”

Despite that upshot, a concern that Hawaii is growing tourism too quickly appears to be taking hold again. In HTA’s most recent Resident Sentiment Study (2015), the response to a survey statement that “tourism has been mostly positive for you and your family” was 40 percent — the lowest measure since the biennial study started in 1998. That year, 60 percent agreed with the “mostly positive” sentiment.

In response to grumbles, Szigeti said, “I listen to them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but we don’t have a switch that you can turn on and off. … If you tell people: ‘Don’t come.’ They’ll go to Mexico, they’ll go to Cancun. They’ll discover new places, and we won’t get them back again.”

Also, HTA points out that while the industry is the state’s economic engine, it’s also fragile. For example, after the 9/11 tragedy, tourism came to a sudden halt here. “It can go away in a nanosecond, and I think people need to be aware of that,” Szigeti said.

Curt Cottrell, administrator of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of State Parks, said because there’s no set tipping point for capacity, state funding for agencies handling tourism traffic must keep pace with the ascending arrivals count.

In our state parks as well as the state’s Na Ala Hele Trails and Access system (trails and road access features covering 855 miles), small boat harbors and other facilities, Cottrell said, “We cannot continue to adequately serve ever-increasing numbers of visitors without additional staffing and funding.”

Is there a tipping point?

Problems in these vulnerable places are compounded by the new trends such as the use of drones and smart phones to relay stunning images from both managed and — more frequently — in out-of-bounds areas.

“There are no secret locations anymore, and local communities that were once insulated from the visitor industry are now feeling the full impact of visitors — in areas where there is no infrastructure or even available land to manage impact associated with rapid increase in vehicle parking issues and the need for comfort stations and other management amenities.”

Those “backyard” problems are contributing to residential pushback, Cottrell said.

So, what should Hawaii do to protect local communities as well as hiking trails, beaches and reefs? Geoff Bolan — CEO of Sustainable Travel International, a green-focused nonprofit, and a speaker in next month’s Honolulu summit — asserted that for starters, we must prioritize environmental preservation.

“Unfortunately, one only really discovers a tipping point when it’s too late,” such as when a damaged reef is past the point of recovery or when excessive visitation in a forested area leads to irreversible erosion or habitat destruction, Bolan said. “It’s clear that Hawaii is pushing toward a precarious place” related to tourism impact.

“The state should charge more for the right to use these sensitive resources while setting daily visitation limits (as just happened at Machu Picchu in Peru). Visitors pay $100 to enter the Galapagos Islands — and that should be higher. The cost of managing sensitive ecosystems is important, and Hawaii is not immune to that,” Bolan said.

Visitor limits at sites

Hawaii does limit sightseer access to some popular attractions that previously were overwhelmed by visitors. Hanauma Bay State Park and Diamond Head State Monument, for example, now limit hours and charge fees. At the federal level, in February the National Park Service put in place a new system requiring reservations to drive up to Haleakala’s summit to see the sunrise. Implemented on an emergency basis to address overcrowding, the system, which has dramatically reduced crowds, is now undergoing a review.

Cottrell said that improving environmental protection must start with education and outreach to visitors and kamaaina, followed — when all else fails — by enforcement measures, such as managed limits at trail head and park entry points. “On the education and outreach front, DLNR has been very aggressive in countering false, inaccurate and damaging information often conveyed by social media, and we are currently developing a formal plan in concert with HTA and other partners to step these efforts up.”

For example, DLNR recently installed about 30 signs around Oahu that feature a map of managed hiking, snorkeling and camping spots. The signs also have a QR code that provides more site and environmental protection details, in multiple languages, when scanned.

“On the enforcement front,” Cottrell said, “the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) is understaffed. With 125 officers spread across the state it is impossible for them to be everywhere all the time.”

So, who’s to blame for our tourist-related shortcomings? The impulse to blame visitors themselves is misplaced, Brewbaker said.

“No doubt Hawaii under-endows natural resource stewardship with the fiscal or financial resources it is due, but that’s a political decision made by locals, with or without tourists,” he said. “The difference between the two states of nature — without and with tourists — is that the latter yields more financial resources with which to manage natural resources. The failures of natural resource stewardship in Hawaii are on local people, not on tourists.”

A delicate balance

Looking toward the future, HTA intends to continue its efforts to balance its marketing of tourism with support of events, programs and initiatives to help perpetuate the Hawaiian culture and preserve natural resources — both key to “integrity of the destination,” Szigeti said.

Tethered to that, Cottrell said, is an ongoing conversation about optimizing tourism sustainability, which now spans a “broad spectrum of stakeholders and interest groups.”

He added, “We absolutely feel the state of our natural and cultural resources is directly and inextricably tied to the health of our economy and its chief driver — tourism.”

In the wake of the midyear arrival and spending tallies, Szigeti said, “The numbers exceeded all expectations, and I really think that’s helped a lot of people. Yes, it’s more crowded; yes, there’s more traffic, but it isn’t all visitor-related. Some of it’s infrastructure, and some of it’s for other reasons.”

He added, “We’re glad to be part of the (sustainability) conversation.”