There's one thing that's soaring in Hawaiʻi, and it isn't tourists — it's the cost of their plane tickets.
With rising airfares and hotel costs, the standard vacation to Hawaiʻi is taking a hit, with visitors spending less and less time on the islands.
However, the tourism industry has continued to boom globally, with a new emphasis on "experience travel" — visiting new places to see a concert, sporting event or anything else.
To understand this phenomenon, HPR spoke with University of Nevada economist Bo Bernhard. He's a connection between Hawaiʻi and Las Vegas, the "ninth island" — and he discussed what he calls the "fun economy."
Interview Highlights
On popularity vs. prosperity
BO BERNHARD: The world was bound to love Hawaiʻi the moment they set foot here. And of course, Hawaiʻi's won the popularity contest. It's a place that is beloved. What it wants to win is the prosperity contest, right? Whereby you are seeing increasing revenues from fewer tourists. And that's exactly what's happening. So this is kind of a different way to look at what you're talking about, which is declining numbers of tourists, but higher prices. What that's leading to is we saw a 17% increase year-over-year here in Hawaiʻi on the amount of revenue generated per tourist. So maybe, just maybe, there's a solution buried in there.
On the "fun economy"
BERNHARD: The cost of being a tourist is also going up. … One of the reasons behind this is because of winning the popularity contest, and it's being driven by … the fun economy worldwide. We define the fun economy as the global tourism plus sports plus entertainment industry. That's now $1 in $7 spent on Earth, and that's driven by the fact that we live in the first moment in human history where 50% of planet Earth is middle class or above for the first time. And the first thing that people buy when they join the ranks of the middle class are trips, ball games and Taylor Swift concerts.
On adapting Hawaiʻi's tourism industry
BERNHARD: It's no longer that entertainment is separate from tourism. People are traveling the world to see BTS. So how do you join that train that's leaving the station? …. You only have so many arrows in that quiver that you can build as a man-made thing, as a human-made thing. One of them is, of course, a stadium, which is something of interest here in Hawaiʻi because we're looking at, obviously, the redevelopment of the Aloha Stadium District. Another one of them is what they now call an integrated casino resort, where there's a casino as a part of it, but it's like a Bellagio, right? It also has an art museum. It also has massive food and beverage outlets and retail outlets, and it's a huge, huge convention center as well. Another human-made thing, the convention center that we're struggling a bit with here in Hawaiʻi right now. And so these are things that move the needle.
More information about Bernhard and his upcoming book, "The Fun Economy," can be found here.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 26, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
