Hawaii Cruise Ships: The Plantations of the Sea

[last updated. 2024] What is a place that is open air with Hawaii Wet and Wild (water park), Aiea Bowl (bowling alley), and several dozen eateries on board while bringing part of PearlRidge Mall and a Hotel that floats. These are the modern Cruise Ships that are floating cities and not your grandma's Matson Line Cruises (1950s). Hawaii state officials and the people in charge of decision making at the Department of Transportation in 2022 would reopen business to Mega Cruise Ships.

Many cruises begin, stop or end in Hawaiʻi, but hoist flags to avoid taxes and take advantage of how the government caters to cruises for their massive consumption of goods that ironically in Hawaii comes 90% from places not Hawaii sourced due to ”The Jones Act”. To find out about Hawaii cruises there has to be the source of all cruises that leads us all the way back to a man known as Francis Davidson Fraser. Francis Davidson Fraser’s ancestors settled in Colonial-Jamaica where they took ownership of several plantations (citrus, banana) and he grew up as a colonial-aire and raised to be a colonial-aristocrat. He had inherited a thriving export business where he would have his aspirations to be the invention of cruises through the Miami Ports as a nonstop cruise port. Fraser was friends with a Dominican Republic Dictator “Raphael Trujillo” who charted him a passenger ship that started the launch of Miami Cruise Line that offered Boat Travel to be enjoyed. This established the Caribbean-cruise ship industry. He would go on to use United States specific Colonization Techniques based on the transformation of the Panama Canal of Disease Ridden to the commercialized Luxury Destination.

Regardless of countries celebrating independence from Colonial Control or outraged by its passed power onto larger nations the poor economic conditions of countries or territories would make growth less accessible.there was one very accessible source of growth, which was Tourism, so places like Hawaii would invest in massive infrastructure projects to accommodate the desires of tourists with American Politics and capital. It's an Extractive Industry like the Old Plantations, both cruise ships and plantations can be seen as extractive industries. Plantations extracted resources like sugar and pineapples, while cruise ships extract money from tourists and the environment. While both industries bring in revenue, the profits may not be evenly distributed. Many plantation workers lived in poor conditions, and cruise ship tourism benefits corporations more than Hawaii residents who also live in poor conditions. Plantations relied on imported labor, often with harsh working conditions. Crew members on some cruise ships may face similar challenges. Plantation owners held significant power over the lives of workers. Cruise lines can have a powerful influence over tourist destinations, potentially dictating how a place is developed.

Trading blocks made Hawaii uncompetitive in manufacturing and agriculture. With a few key things in the way of economic diversification: NAFTA, PVSA, . Before NAFTA imported items from foreign countries were taxed and after they weren’t taxed made them cheaper (more trade), so domestic items that are taxed are passed on to consumers to make things more expensive (less trade). PVSA requires vessels carrying passengers between two U.S. ports to be U.S. registered and built and mostly owned and crewed by Americans. But no cruise ship has been constructed in the U.S. since 1958 and thus the U.S. shipyards lack the expertise. Businesses save a lot of money making ships by being 400% cheaper elsewhere that includes: interisland ferries (super ferry), cargo ships, and cruise ships, due to the expense of U.S. built ships.

Hawaii takes the burdens of immense tourist traffic without reaping much of the profits with much of the benefits are for: Private Transportation Services, Harbor dues, Dock Labor, and Cruise Ships. Local Economies have practically passed out from the overwork while investment increases further insulating their designated tourists zones instead of developing them with the local community in mind by buying or leasing land. The predictability of continental food meets the endless array of entertainment places within the encapsulated tourist based New Waikiki. As costs rise the Hawaii tourism was being based on Luxury Entertainment the Social Strife is rendered less-visible if not invisible and the biggest decisions are based on fear-of-missing out on a festival, the golf course, the online event becomes the cultural value or “Things to Do” in the city.

New Waikiki would be designed in mind as an optional “Total Institution” where people who were transported to the limited-area urban jungle would make people feel safe and more-likely to do what is available in Waikiki and consume the Hawaii the businesses offer. It would be redesigned to be experienced as a simulated all-encompassing oasis exterior. As tourists move from place to place, engaging with various sites in New Waikiki, they encounter the businesses as if caged in a stall where it appears that the realities of Hawaii appear unthreatened and faraway. Hawaii has always been a place where people could escape their everyday worries in one way or another. This would have many people thinking of the glory days of old Waikiki that was marked its way out with the closure of what many called the heart of old Waikiki “Queen’s Surf”.

Historically in Old Waikiki they wanted an Improve Environment with Locals, the New Waikiki wanted a Choreographed Environment in Paradise. So the word “Paradise”, which originally meant the actual definition of a place of bliss, would take on the international tourist definition of cruise ships being “a place to be sold as a temporary Utopia”. The word would take on a life of its own and transform from that to “Paradise” at one time meaning something good, changing to the hardships of the plantation to replicate the economic and political dependency established during the big five and colonialism has been revived in the Hawaii Tourist Industry in New Waikiki’s new but actually old approach. New Waikiki was constructed to generate an expectation of guest-host dynamic to hijack cultural values of things like “Aloha”. A case where tourism in Old Waikiki would teach what Aloha was culturally would be bottled into an easily recognizable expression of paradise that had visitors expecting locals to treat them like hotel staff, due to the dependence on tourism infrastructure Hawaii has.

Tourism Oligopoly, a select few companies get massive profits while a select few have higher spending luxury with the locals taking in increased bills to pay. When branding was king pre-internet it ensured a safe experience, which means no hassling from locals or Hawaiians, threats of visitor insecurity, or illness within a tourist marked area. This would shape the tourist through the environment to act with reckless abandon while in areas outside of Waikiki, including situations of safety where they become less fearful of things as obvious as an incoming towering wave when traveling to the North Shore. Tanking the local entertainment businesses and talents were key for such a foreign take over of money, because those who control the experience control the money and more so the land. To control such experiences businesses would have to take a larger bit of the pie and with that in mind the pie had to change from the majority of people with purchasing power being locals and Hawaii residents to people from anywhere around the world. The answer was tourism in a controlled environment, so if a new waikiki wasn’t enough why not bring a floating waikiki called “The Cruise Ship” and make local competition crippled with being a slave to the shipping rules of the “the Jones Act”.

Target Audience changed with the enchantment to allure consumers to spend and control their trapped thought process of purchasing consumption thinking. Marketers would create an experience so powerful it be with fantasy or culture and or service options at a cost they can afford to make a loss of time and dream-like travel state of mind that time seems to stop moving. And what stronger experience is more powerful then the natural environment of hiking trails with lush valleys, the world class beaches, and some of the strongest marketing teams on the planet. A ride with animatronics or a robot doing stuff or entertainment that's regional etc and seeing lots of beautiful things can just make time feel irrelevant to the trip. Consumers starts to use consumption as identity to relate to the uncertain world around them and actively contribute their spending to who they are with self-affirmation phrases like “im helping by coming to Hawaii” not as a statement, but as a cue to who they are a helper to the island through what they consume. Many people will buy new cars and trade them in as well as lease them in Hawaii to show what they consume is who they are and this is to trap lower wage consumers into consumer-identity where people buy things to send a message, so in the end as people spend more the businesses win and achieve their goals with those who are spending the most money are likely those who are those who would be saving as it could hurt their future in exchange for a wonderful life-changing experience. This is not just the responsibility of the tourist and the local, but its actually part of a whole psychological scheme that started from the Cruise Ships and made their way into tourism.

This means consuming leads to identity and there is no stronger place that is apparent then the United States and that means a way to control Tourism to to sell cool things to them and the people with the communication and power to influence those cool things they are consuming. Ever wonder why Tourism connected to Culture leads more people to want to learn more culture at each level? Its because they are consuming a service that's fun, unique, and treated as entertainment. The tourism market would make ideal spaces for fueling reflexive consuming behaviors that are habit forming or whenever people come to Hawaii it is designed where they don’t think about what they are spending on, so what does that say about their identity? Well in the controlled spaces where spending is reflexive and identity is all over the place, the controlled environment of what they consume means the companies control the tourists identity through what they purchase, the fun and entertainment being controlled by the business to send their message, and having a person in marketing with the gift of the gab dresses up anything opposing tourism as something that it is actually doing when it really isn’t through charisma. The problem with everything being in a controlled environment is that it releases the tourist from moral and social constraints by saying “You only live once” (YOLO), or “Im here only for a short while” to the point where even those working in Hawaii temporarily or on Military bases start turning to the tourist mindset. But thats not all it even influences the behavior of locals who depend on the tourism sector or have no control of their spending either with the idea of “If i live in a tropical paradise I may as well enjoy it too, not just the tourist”. Big business wins and anyone who consumes lose out until each person has a understanding about how Hawaii businesses work in the Tourism Industry. The more you think about it the controlling of what is purchased is a lot like a “Plantation General Store” where people would be forced to spend everything simply to survive or in this case of tourism spend to simply fully enjoy themselves.

Instead of having a target audience of well to do middle and upper class wealth classes who were looking to be well cultured the target market would change to tier leveled experiences where the largest target was the lowest wage group (every jon and jane) with the middle class moderate target and the rich the lowest but most exclusive group. The reason for this is the information about the lower wage visitors had limited funds with a limited amount of time and limited cultural intake, so it just made more sense for companies to play towards consumption based experiences rather than balanced ones. The more authentic and balanced experiences were for those in the larger wage brackets, the well to do or rich that had less of them coming due to spending-walls. So while the rich knew authentic Hawaii with all the cool things and exclusive stories it left the majority of visitors with a less than authentic experience. The poor had a poor understanding of Hawaii as they couldn’t have access to the private guides, the multitude of expensive events, the private tour guides telling them in the ins and the outs, and have any sort of experience they could buy with the mighty dollar.

Tourism Discourse is what people refer to the design of the New Waiki where there is a false implication that everything is okay in what's known as accommodating a Ecological-Bubble where the tourist can blindly not be aware of the surroundings while adding to Tax-Costs of Locals rather than themselves. This can include Hawaii’s: lack of maintained roads, multiplied use of electricity consumption, excessive sewage disposal, police service fiscal needs increases, and a natural water supply that would be chlorinated to simply chemical-tasting clean-water supply. Unsustainable Tourism Companies exploit Hawaii resources, while host islands of Hawaii who invested heavily in tourism are at the mercy of airlines and cruise lines, meanwhile the tourist is tricked into a simulated vision of Hawaiian Happiness that fails to give a true expression of those living there of Hawaii Residents and the Hawaiian people. Because of this people blame Hawaii for failing to realize true Financial Independence and supporting the second coming of the plantations. People continue to accept the generational downward mobility that leaves Hawaii residents who don’t acquire great amounts of generational wealth to continue working as the plantation workers in the sugarcane fields. The most common way this is referred to by both tourist and local is “The Cost of Paradise”.

The Mega Rich, foreign or not, heavily invest in major tourism areas that create a need to pay them back by attracting an increasingly wealthy tourist to pay back those debts. In this case it renders the Hawaiian Islands to be reliant on the former colonizer countries or trade countries while focusing their tax money even more on tourism. Government services in turn of healthcare or public transit take a hit. Tourism businesses, especially the Cruise ship industry love to say how tourists are the fuel that keeps Hawaii afloat. They increasingly control the geography and real estate the tourists access. But the thing is this is actually what tourists want as there is a market for tourists who have: (A.) Want little incentive to socially engage with Exotic people, (B.) Want to not be reminded of the realities of Hawaiian life with poverty or other deprivations, (C.) Make it unattractive to locals for a Tourist-centric undisturbed experience for their once in a lifetime getaway.