Hawaii Just Ran A Commercial At An NFL Game Urging Tourists To Return – After Years Of ‘we Don’t Want You

I’m gonna be honest with you. I’ve lived on Oahu for over three decades, spent countless weekends on Maui and the Big Island, and watched Kauai transform from my first visit in the ’90s.

I’m not a tour guide – I’m just someone who’s seen Hawaii go through an identity crisis that would make a teenager look stable.

What just happened with that NFL commercial? It’s complicated, messy, and yeah, a little hypocritical. Let me break down what’s really going on.

The $3.8 Million Oops Moment

So there I was in January 2026, watching the Rams game with my neighbor who works at Aulani, and this Hawaii tourism commercial pops up.

Big budget. Emotional music. Sweeping shots of waves and green mountains. The tagline? “Hawaii Stays With You.”

My neighbor nearly spit out his beer.

“Are they seriously begging people to come back?” he said. And yeah, that’s exactly what was happening. The state dropped $3.86 million on a two-year partnership with the Los Angeles Rams to get Southern California tourists – our biggest market – to remember we exist.

They even flew the team to Maui for training camp back in June 2025, all on tourism promotion dollars.

For the past few years, the message from Hawaii was basically the opposite.

We were the destination equivalent of that ex who says: “I need space” and then gets upset when you start dating someone else. The shift was so obvious, so desperate, that even mainland news outlets picked up on it.

The campaign focuses on three big ideas:

• Adventure
• Food
• Wellness

All wrapped up in Hawaiian values like aloha and kuleana (responsibility). It sounds nice on paper. But if you’d been paying attention for the last five years, your whiplash would need whiplash.

When We Told Everyone To Stay Home

Let me take you back to August 2021. COVID was still raging, our hospitals were maxed out, and Governor Ige literally went on TV and told tourists to stop coming.

“It is a risky time to be traveling right now,” he said.

And you know what? A lot of locals were thrilled. I remember driving down the H-1 during lockdown in 2020, and it was eerie. No traffic.

I could actually get to Kailua Beach without spending 40 minutes looking for parking. The water at Hanauma Bay was so clear you could see fish from the rim that I’d never noticed in 20 years of visits.

Healani Sonoda-Pale from Ka Lahui Hawaii said something that stuck with me: “During our lockdown in 2020, we were able to see what Hawaii was like without tourists.” And honestly? It was quieter. Cleaner.

The monk seals on the North Shore weren’t getting poked by selfie sticks.

We remembered what the islands felt like before they became an Instagram backdrop.

But here’s where it got messy. When tourism came back in 2021 and 2022, it came back hard. Restaurants had 90-minute waits. Rental cars cost $500 a day.

Hiking trails were packed with people who didn’t know you shouldn’t touch the coral or that some places are sacred. And locals who’d just experienced a peaceful Hawaii without tourists started getting loud on social media.

Real loud.

You’d see TikToks and Instagram posts saying “Tourists Go Home” or “Hana Can’t Stand You.” Some of it was understandable frustration. Some of it crossed lines.

Reddit threads filled up with visitors asking if they’d actually be welcome or if they’d face hostility. The vibe shifted from “aloha” to “we’re tired of this.”

Why Everyone Was So Mad In The First Place

Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this. The anger wasn’t just about COVID or crowded beaches.

It was decades of pressure that finally exploded.

Housing got completely insane. As of 2024, Hawaii’s cost of living was 80.3% higher than the national average, with housing costs 213% higher. Let that sink in for a second.

My cousin, who teaches at a public school in Waipahu? She lives with her parents, her sister, and her sister’s two kids. She’s 38. She has a master’s degree.

This is normal here now.

About 30,000 of Hawaii’s 565,000 total housing units are short-term rentals – that’s roughly 5% of our entire housing stock turned into vacation properties. Investors (a lot of them mainland or foreign) buy up homes and turn them into Airbnbs because they can make more money from tourists than from local renters.

Entire neighborhoods in places like Kihei or parts of Oahu became ghost towns where nobody actually lives full-time.

I’ve got a friend who works three jobs – morning shift at a hotel, afternoon at a restaurant, late night doing rideshare.

He’s not unusual. The tourism industry employs a lot of people here, but the wages don’t come close to covering the cost of living. Meanwhile, tourists are spending money like crazy, but we’re the ones who can’t afford to live in our own homes.

And it’s not just about money.

During the post-COVID tourism boom, we saw visitors doing stuff that made our blood boil. Touching endangered monk seals. Hiking closed trails. Treating sacred Hawaiian sites like theme parks.

There were viral videos of tourists trampling coral reefs and trespassing on private property to get that perfect sunset shot.

A resident sentiment survey from spring 2024 found that among locals who said tourism creates more problems than benefits, 75% cited the high cost of living, 70% pointed to environmental damage, and 69% mentioned lack of respect.

Those aren’t small numbers.

Then Maui Burned And Everything Changed

August 8, 2023. The Lahaina fires.

I won’t pretend I can fully explain what that felt like for Maui residents. Over 100 people died. An entire historic town – the old capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom – just… gone.

I have friends who lost everything. The family was who evacuated with nothing but their phones and the clothes they were wearing.

Right after the fires, visitor arrivals to Maui dropped 58%. Hotels housed displaced residents instead of tourists. For a couple of months, nobody was thinking about tourism numbers or marketing campaigns.

We were thinking about survival and recovery.

But then the question became: when do tourists come back? Maui’s economy runs on tourism. People needed their jobs back. Businesses needed revenue to rebuild.

By late 2023, there was a gentle push to tell visitors that West Maui (the unaffected areas) was open and needed support.

Here’s the uncomfortable part. Even a year later in 2024, Maui was seeing 21.8% fewer visitors than before the fires, with spending down 27.1%. By July 2025, visitor numbers were still down 20.7% compared to pre-fire 2023.

The island needed tourists to recover, but the optics of saying “hey, remember us?” felt weird after years of “please leave us alone.”

It wasn’t just Maui feeling the pain, though.

The Money Dried Up Everywhere

By 2024 and 2025, Hawaii’s tourism industry hit a wall. Total visitor arrivals across all islands were declining – down 4% in some months, with projections showing the slump would continue through 2028.

For the full year 2024, Hawaii saw 9.7 million visitors – that’s 7% below the record-breaking 10.4 million from 2019.

Spending totaled nearly $21 billion, which sounds great until you factor in inflation and realize it’s actually less buying power than in 2019.

July 2025? Down 4.4% in arrivals. The first half of 2025 compared to 2024? Steady, but not growing. International visitors, especially from Japan (traditionally huge for us), kept declining.

I noticed it in real time.

Waikiki felt less congested. Restaurants that used to have crazy waits suddenly had tables available. Local shops started offering discounts. My neighbor who does hotel housekeeping? Her hours got cut from five days to three.

The state’s economic forecasts got grim. A $1.6 billion reduction in visitor spending is projected by 2026, with all counties seeing declines in tourism employment. Recovery wasn’t expected until 2028.

That’s a long time to wait when your economy is 80% dependent on people showing up with suitcases and credit cards.

Pro tip: This is actually great news if you’re planning a trip now. Prices are more reasonable, crowds are manageable, and locals aren’t as burnt out from overtourism. You’ll get a better experience.

The Awkward Apology Tour Nobody’s Calling An Apology

So what do you do when your main industry is dying, your residents are still angry, and you’ve spent years telling your customers you don’t really want them?

You spend $3.86 million on an NFL commercial and pretend the last five years didn’t happen.

The “Hawaii Stays With You” campaign launched in January 2026 with this aspirational vibe about emotional connections and meaningful experiences. It talks about regenerative tourism – where visitors actually give back to the community and environment, not just take selfies and leave.

The concept is rooted in Hawaiian values like mālama (to care for) and kuleana (responsibility).

On paper, it sounds beautiful. And honestly, some of it is genuine. The Hawaii Tourism Authority did invest in programs supporting local nonprofits, creating reservation systems for crowded spots like Diamond Head, and funding stewardship initiatives.

They became the first U.S. state to formally incorporate regenerative tourism into statewide planning in 2024.

But here’s the controversial truth I’ll say: it’s still mostly marketing.

The state also passed a “Green Fee” in 2025 – an extra 0.75% tax on accommodations starting January 2026 that’s supposed to generate $100 million yearly for climate resilience and environmental protection.

Sounds great, right?

But they were already charging tourists. This is just more money going into a system where locals have watched tourism funds get spent on NFL partnerships while they can’t afford rent.

When news broke about the Rams deal, especially the part where tourism dollars paid for their luxury training camp on Maui while the island was still recovering from fires, lawmakers were furious.

Picture this: housing is in crisis, short-term rental bans are rolling out, thousands of tourism jobs are uncertain, and the state just accepted a $1.6 billion federal grant for recovery.

Meanwhile, we’re bankrolling NFL perks.

A local travel writer on Beat of Hawaii put it bluntly: the shift was unmistakable. After years of restraint messaging and overtourism warnings, Hawaii was suddenly rolling out the welcome mat again, flowers in hand, asking if Southern California wanted to come back.

It feels… transactional.

Because it is.

What This Actually Means If You’re Planning A Trip

Here’s what I tell friends who ask if they should visit Hawaii right now: Yes, but do it right.

The anti-tourist sentiment hasn’t disappeared. It’s just quieter because the economic reality set in. A recent assessment found that about 25% of social media posts about Maui tourism were negative, with anti-tourist sentiments.

But most of that anger is directed at the Instagram tourist – the person who shows up, disrespects the culture, trashes the environment, and leaves.

If you come with genuine curiosity and respect, you’ll be fine. I’ve spent two months recently really paying attention to how locals interact with visitors, and it’s not the hostility some Reddit threads would have you believe.

Are some people tired and frustrated? Absolutely.

Will you occasionally encounter someone who resents your presence? Maybe. But most of us understand that tourism isn’t going away, and we’d rather have mindful visitors than no visitors and no economy.

Here’s what “doing it right” looks like:

• Don’t just stay in Waikiki or Wailea – spend money at local businesses, not just chains
• If a trail is closed or a sign says “kapu” (forbidden), respect it – those rules exist for reasons
• Learn a bit about Hawaiian culture before you come – understand that this is someone’s home, not your playground
• Consider doing a volunteer activity – beach cleanups happen regularly, and visitors are usually welcome
• Talk to locals like humans, not like they’re part of the scenery or your personal tour guides

The smell of plumeria in the morning near my house hasn’t changed. The sound of waves breaking at Sandy Beach still makes me stop and listen even after 30 years.

The taste of a fresh malasada from Leonard’s is still worth the line.

Hawaii is still Hawaii. We’re just trying to figure out how to share it without losing it.

Insider tip: If you want to avoid crowds even now, hit the beaches midweek and skip the sunrise/sunset times when everyone’s chasing photos. Late morning on a Wednesday at Lanikai? You’ll have space to breathe.

The Uncomfortable Truth Nobody Wants To Say

Let’s get real for a minute. This whole situation reveals something uncomfortable about Hawaii’s economy and identity.

We’re addicted to tourism, but we resent tourists.

We need their money, but we hate what that money does to our home. We want them to come back when numbers drop, but we want them to leave when they get too crowded.

It’s an impossible tension that nobody’s figured out how to resolve.

The “regenerative tourism” movement is a nice idea, but it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem: our economy is almost entirely dependent on an industry that drives up our cost of living, converts our housing into vacation rentals, and treats our culture as a commodity.

Some locals will hate me for saying this, but the “please stay home” messaging during COVID was never realistic long-term. Too many jobs depend on tourism. Too many families rely on those paychecks.

The government depends on that tax revenue.

We can’t just shut it off without devastating consequences – and we saw that during the pandemic and after the Maui fires, when unemployment spiked and businesses closed permanently.

But the opposite is also true: we can’t just open the floodgates and go back to 2019 levels without destroying what makes Hawaii special in the first place.

A resident sentiment survey found that only 53% of locals thought tourism brought more benefits than problems – down from 80% in 2010. That’s a massive shift in a decade.

So what happened with that NFL commercial?

Hawaii got desperate. Numbers dropped, money dried up, and the state panicked. They threw millions at a splashy campaign, hoping to revive an industry that was dying from its own success.

It’s not really about welcoming you back with aloha. It’s about survival. The state needs your dollars to function, and they’re willing to spend millions to get them – even if it means looking hypocritical after years of mixed messages.

The real question is whether Hawaii will actually change how it manages tourism, or if this is just a temporary pivot until numbers recover and the complaints start up again.

My gut says it’s the latter.

We’ll get crowded again, housing will get more expensive, locals will get more frustrated, and the cycle will repeat.

I hope I’m wrong, though. I really do.

So Should You Come Or Not

Here’s my honest take after living through this whole mess: Come to Hawaii. But be part of the solution, not the problem.

Book accommodations in hotels, not illegal Airbnbs that could be housing for locals. Spend money at small businesses owned by kamaaina (longtime residents). Don’t touch wildlife.

Don’t trespass. Don’t blast music at beaches.

Learn a few Hawaiian words and use them respectfully. Leave places cleaner than you found them.

The new “Hawaii Stays With You” campaign wants your money, sure. But it also wants something the old tourism model didn’t prioritize – your respect and your willingness to engage with Hawaii as more than just a backdrop for your vacation photos.

Whether that message is genuine or just better marketing, I can’t tell you.

What I can tell you is that Hawaii is still one of the most beautiful places on earth, with culture and history that deserve protection and respect.

The locals you’ll meet are tired but resilient. The islands are recovering but vulnerable.

We ran that commercial because we need you. Whether we want to admit it or not, the economic reality forced our hand. The anti-tourism sentiment didn’t disappear – it just got complicated by necessity.

Come if you want.

Just don’t be surprised if the relationship feels a little awkward. We’re still figuring out what we want from each other. And honestly? That might take a while longer than the two-year NFL contract.