It frustrates me when I see big tour buses pilling visitors onto my favorite beach/hiking trail/etc. Doesn’t certification encourage more of this?

At STAH we do encourage visitors to travel with tour operators versus traveling on their own for a number of reasons:

• When visitors travel on their own, they do not get educated on how to interact with the area they are visiting, or what types of behaviors can cause issues. Tour operators can provide this education.
• We highly encourage our tour operators to work with the communities they visit to rotate the locations they visit and avoid peak times when residents might want to enjoy these places too
• If all the people on a tour bus got into rental vehicles, traffic would actually be much worse
• The carbon footprint of a tour bus compared to rental vehicles is substantially lower
• By educating visitors about the splendor of Hawaii’s resources, they are more likely to feel connected to them and protect them