page_title: Tourism in Hawaii
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Tourism in Hawaii / History of travel to Hawaii / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: [Whaler] "Benjamin Tucker" in Honolulu. Ambrotype, 1/2 plate, cased. New Bedford Whaling Museum. Bark Benjamin Tucker at anchor in harbor in Honolulu. On her return passage from the Arctic, Benjamin Tucker encountered a storm which damaged her rigging. Captain Spencer commisioned this ambrotype depicting the damage to send to the vessel's owners. It is one of the earliest known photographs of an American whaleship. Other ships can be seen on either side of photograph.
context_page_description: Hawaii is a U.S. state that is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. Of the eight major islands, Hawaii, Oʻahu, Maui, and Kauaʻi have major tourism industries, while it is limited on Molokai and Lānaʻi and access to Niihau and Kahoʻolawe is restricted.
  In 2017 alone, according to state government data, there were over 9.4 million visitors to the Hawaiian Islands with expenditures of over $16 billion. Tourism makes up 21% of the state's economy, with many of Hawaii's largest industries revolving around the constant flow of tourists.
  Due to the mild year-round weather, tourist travel is popular throughout the year. The summer months and major holidays are the most popular times for outsiders to visit, however, especially when residents of the rest of the United States are looking to escape from cold winter weather. The Japanese, with their economic and historical ties to Hawaii and the US as well as relative geographical proximity, make up the largest group of inbound international travelers to the islands, reaching 1,568,609 in 2017. The average Japanese stays only 5 days while other Asians stay over 9.5 days and spend 25% more.
context_section_description: Prominent 19th-century travelers to Hawaii included journalist Isabella Bird, along with a number of American and British authors. Tourist visits remained around 2,000 per year from 1872 to 1898. American writers include Mark Twain aboard the Ajax as a travel journalist with the Sacramento Daily Union in 1866, and Herman Melville, who deserted from his whaler in 1843 and later found passage back to the mainland that summer aboard USS United States. Twain's unfinished novel of Hawaii was incorporated into his A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, with King Arthur bearing striking similarities to Kamehameha V, the first reigning monarch Twain was to meet. The "modernizing" potential offered by the Connecticut Yankee from the future is a satire of the potentially negative Protestant Missionary influence on Hawaiian life. Melville's writing of the Pacific includes Typee and Omoo (considered factual travel accounts when published) and his Pacific experiences would develop into the portrayal of Queequeg in Moby-Dick.
  British writers include the Scot Robert Louis Stevenson, whose subsequent In the South Seas was published based on his voyages. During his stay in the islands, he wrote a stunning defense of Father Damien's work with the lepers of Kalaupapa against the politicized views of Father Damien's Protestant detractors. Consequently, Hawaiʻi is home to the eponymous Stevenson Middle School. Stevenson later died in Samoa.
  Regular commercial passenger, cargo, and mail service to Hawaii via steamship started in 1870 with the North Pacific Transportation Company of Australia. The Oceanic Steamship Company was incorporated by John D. Spreckels, son of sugar baron Claus Spreckels, on December 24, 1881 to establish a steamship line between San Francisco and Hawaii. Oceanic signed a contract in July 1882 with William Cramp & Sons for two "first-class iron steamships" intended for the Honolulu route; these were completed in 1883 as the Alameda and Mariposa. Spreckels traveled to the East Coast intending to contract for the building of two more steamships, but returned in March 1886 after having purchased Zealandia and Australia from John Elder & Company.
  William Matson had served as captain of Claus Spreckels's yacht (named Lurline) and in turn, Spreckels helped Matson purchase his first ship, the Emma Claudina (named for Spreckels's daughter), which made its first voyage to Hawaii in 1882. Matson would go on to found the Matson Navigation Company, whose genesis was in the first Lurline, purchased to replace the smaller Emma Claudina; that first Lurline was sold to Matson by Spreckels and undertook a two-month maiden sail from San Francisco to Hawaii in 1887, marking the start of Matson's commercial passenger service to the Hawaiian Islands.
  19th-century development in Hawaii played a big part in the increase of tourism that continued into the 21st century. In 1888, a writer for the Los Angeles Herald extolled "culture, refinement, and a hospitality so cordial that one scarcely meets it elsewhere" joined with "the island air that is kept pure and sweet by the gentle trade winds' refreshing currents". Advanced technologies including cars, marketing, hotels, and shopping malls allow vacationers to visit a modernized tropical island, which contributes heavily to steady growth in tourism. Conversely, the Native Hawaiian population continues to decrease, resulting in a loss of authentic Hawaiian culture on the islands, similar to other Oceanian islands.
caption: Whaler Benjamin Tucker in Honolulu (1857)
exif: {}