Impacts of tourism in Hawaii
Economic
As Hawaii changed from a Kingdom to a Territory to a State, so too did the dominant industries change. Being a primarily agricultural land, producing around 80 percent of the world's pineapples in the 1960s, the addition of Pan Am’s flight route to Hawaii rapidly increased the number of visitors going to the islands. The years following statehood led to more than double the number of passengers arriving at Honolulu airport. As this trend continues to increase, Hawaii's economy has become heavily dependent on the tourism industry. Although the economy has seen significant growth with the addition of this industry, some researchers believe this will leave Hawaii susceptible to external economic forces. Some examples of these are an economic recession, airline strikes, or varying fuel prices which could devastate the local economy. The devastating national economic recession of 2008, hit Hawaii's tourism industry hard. In 2008, hotel occupancy dropped to 60 percent, a level not seen since the terrorist attacks in 2001.

As the economy has returned to normal levels, the tourism industry has continued to grow in Hawaii with the majority of tourists visiting Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the big island of Hawaii. Job creation is another benefit of tourism to the islands. In 2017, reports say 204,000 jobs were related to tourism. This led to $16.78 billion in visitor spending with $1.96 billion generated in tax revenue in that year alone. Resorts and the airline business are the primary benefactors of this increase in tourism.

Environmental
The Sustainable Tourism Association of Hawaii (formerly the Hawaii Ecotourism Association) was founded in 1995 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to nurture the development of sustainable tourism in Hawaii. It offers a certification program to educate and recognize conservation-minded tour operators in Hawaii, the only such certification program of its kind in America.

The long term environmental implications that Hawaii is facing due to mass tourism has raised concern. To combat this and help raise awareness, international environmental organizations have joined forces with local island communities. There are major benefits to this type of management, usually described as "values-led management". By prioritizing the values and existing sustainable practices by local communities living on heavily visited islands, it preserves their interests and further respects their culture.

Water
Hotels are often placed near beaches, in areas with little rainfall, and guests use 2,000 to 10,000 litres (440 to 2,200 imp gal; 530 to 2,640 US gal) of water per person. Another study concluded that on average, a single guest uses approximately 1,300 to 3,600 litres (290 to 790 imp gal; 340 to 950 US gal) of water per day, divided approximately half between accommodations (laundry and sewer) and golf courses (irrigation). This is significantly more than the average resident and has led to a number of droughts throughout the islands.

Landscape
The number of hotel rooms from 1985 to 2010 nearly doubled from 65,000 to 132,000 rooms. Tourists visit destinations with developed infrastructure, groomed activities and pristine conditions, which boosts the economy and finances needed to uphold these facilities. On the other hand, the very creation of these institutions degrades the environmental factors tourists are drawn to. Having perfect conditions requires an amount of upkeep fueled by the revenue of the visitors but the visitors also degrade the environment at a faster rate than residents alone.

A direct effect of the increase in infrastructure is the depletion of the natural landscape. As buildings are constructed the amount of natural land becomes smaller and smaller. As hotels are constructed in prime real estate the environmental problems created are not weighed equally with the potential upside of profit. The government sees the creation of jobs and the increase in visitor spending in the state as a good thing. Those are quantitative variables that can be directly measured in terms of dollars and number of jobs. However, the impact to the environment or the indigenous people is harder to measure in term of absolutes. Hawaii only holds 0.2 percent of the United States land but has a 72.1 percent extinction rate, and more than half of the natural communities in the islands are endangered by developments. An example of this is natural ponds being destroyed during construction of large buildings which were previously home to migrating birds. The ponds are no longer there, which throws off the natural flow of the ecosystem. Another staggering statistic says that nearly 60 percent of the plant and animal species in Hawaii are endangered. This includes the loss of habitats for animals and the diverse flora that gives Hawaii its beauty being degraded at an alarming rate.

Energy
Main article: Energy in Hawaii
Hawaii has traditionally relied on fossil fuel-fired thermal power plants for its electricity generation, although it has set a statewide goal of achieving 100% of electric generation via renewable sources by 2045; as a result, the average guest uses the equivalent of 6.4 to 13 kilograms (14 to 29 lb) of oil per day, approximately 2⁄3 of which is consumed by rental car operation. For electricity alone, the average guest uses 23.9 to 33.6 kW-hr per day.

Refuse
The beaches in Hawaii are becoming increasingly filled with trash, especially plastics. This becomes a problem not only environmentally, but also could have a negative impact on the economy as visitors come for the sandy beaches and pollutants such as trash or plastics decrease the appeal of Hawaii as a vacation destination. Kamilo Beach on the southeastern tip of the island of Hawaii has acquired the nickname "Plastic Beach" for its accumulation of plastic trash, much of it borne via ocean currents and trade winds from the nearby Great Pacific garbage patch. It is estimated that 15 to 20 short tons (14 to 18 t) of trash, 96% of which is plastic, washes ashore here annually.

The average guest generates approximately 3.3 kilograms (7.3 lb) of waste per day. In order to reduce the generation of plastic waste, Hawaii has begun to ban the use of single-use plastic and polystyrene foam on a county-by-county approach. A ban on polystyrene foam containers took effect in Maui County on December 31, 2018; a similar ban started in Hawaii County (the Big Island) on July 1, 2019. Oahu's ban on single-use plastic and polystyrene will take effect on January 1, 2021. Two bills were considered by the Hawaii State Legislature in early 2019, which would have been the first state-wide bans on food service plastics in America. SB367 would ban the use of polystrene foam food containers statewide; that bill died in committee in March 2019. SB522 would ban single-use plastic beverage bottles, utensils, stirring sticks, polystyrene foam containers, and straws starting in 2021; that bill was modified in committee to create a working group to make recommendations on how to reduce plastic waste instead.

Social effect
Some Native Hawaiians believe strongly in the independence of Hawaii and the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. The creation of this grassroots organization leads to a negative view towards visitors and the disruption of the natural land. This leads to a strong contention between developers and natives who believe the land should not be transformed into a commercial or residential development. Many of these individuals are reliant on the land as a means of living. The loss of the environment affects the socio-psychological well-being of those reliant on land and marine resources. Native Hawaiians and residents alike become limited in job opportunities with a heavily skewed job-base in the tourism industry.

The essay "Lovely Hula Lands" (later republished as "Lovely Hula Hands") by native Hawaiian academic and activist Haunani-Kay Trask is severely critical of the huge influx of tourists to Hawaiʻi, which she terms a "prostitution" of Hawaiian culture. She ends her essay with "let me just leave this thought behind. If you are thinking of visiting my homeland, please don't. We don't want or need any more tourists, and we certainly don't like them." However, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has condemned Trask for her anti-American statements, stating that such vitriol helps fuel racism in Hawaiʻi.
Summarize how tourism impacted Hawaii in a variety of areas
- From economic perspective, tourism shifted Hawaii from being primarily agricultural and self-sustainable to heavily dependent on tourism industries and more susceptible on external economic forces such as economic recession or fuel prices. Increasing number of jobs and state income are coming from tourism-related businesses
- On environmental perspective, the state of Hawaii established certification program to educate local communities to practice sustainable and conservation-minded tour operators
- On the resource perspective, water, landscape and energy usage increased significantly and led to concerns on reduced natural habitats for birds and animals
- On the refuse management perspective, trashes, especially plastics, became a major concern both environmentally and economically. Hawaii passed state laws in 2019 and 2021 to ban using plastics in food service, beverage bottles, utensils, stirring sticks, polystyrene foam containers, and straws. These are the first state-wide bans on food service plastics in America. 
- On social effect perspective, there are tensions between Native Hawaiians and residents who hold negative views towards tourism and visitors and the increasingly booming tourism industry.