On Wednesday, I stood on the Great Lawn of the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, watching a life-size Pikachu help kick off the 2024 Pokémon World Championship, which takes place in Honolulu this weekend.
I was surrounded by dozens of YouTubers and social media influencers who had flown in for the event, all carrying iPhones and vlogging equipment, some wearing Pokémon-themed Hawaiian shirts.
They didn’t look like your typical Hawaiian tourists, especially since many of them were wandering around Pokémon World Trainer Town, talking to cameras or playing Pokémon Go on their phones. It’s unclear whether they noticed the nearby beach or swaying palm trees.
But their followers will.
This will be Honolulu’s first time hosting the Pokémon World Championships (Hawaii Island has hosted it three times, most recently in 2012, at the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort). Organizers say the event, which will be held this weekend at the Hawaii Convention Center, will attract more than 3,000 participants from more than 50 countries and territories, most of them bringing family and friends, and that another 14,000 people have signed up to watch the event.
That doesn’t include the thousands of people who weren’t able to get time slots to shop at the Pokémon Center World Store or badges to participate in in-person activities at the center, but who visited Trainer Town at the Hilton Hawaiian Village to meet Pokémon characters and play free Pokémon-themed games.
According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, visitor spending during the event is estimated to exceed $57 million, generating $6.7 million in tax revenue. (The HTA is not sponsoring the event but is working with the Pokémon Company to bring it to the state.)
And thanks to these influencers, millions of eyes will be on the islands.
The opening ceremony of the Pokémon World Championships took place on Wednesday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. (Katherine Toth Fox/Civil Beat/2024)
I started playing Pokémon Go two years ago. I’d like to say that I signed up for my now-7-year-old son (technically that was the trigger), but I’ve played it more than he has. In this mobile game, which is one of the competitive events in the Pokémon World Championships, you have to walk around and catch, evolve, and battle Pokémon. And since some Pokémon characters are exclusive to certain locations (Comfy, for example, is a ray-type Pokémon that can only be caught in Hawaii), serious trainers (as we’re called) also like to travel.
Here’s one of the YouTubers we follow: Brandon Martin (@mystic7). His latest video, filmed in Waikiki, has already garnered over 124,000 views. (Martin has been vlogging for 11 years and boasts 2.73 million subscribers on YouTube.)
Jonathan Guiliana (@JTGily), a Pokémon Go player and YouTuber with 380,000 subscribers, posted a video of him trying to catch a Shiny Shadow Lugia. Trust me, it’s a cool Pokémon.
Waikiki. This video has over 35,000 views and counting.
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact demographics of Pokémon Go players, but based on various online sources and my own personal observations, the game, which averages around 81 million active players per month, seems to be played primarily by an older demographic between the ages of 35 and 54 (like me), with teenagers and young adults who may have downloaded the game when it was first released no longer actively playing it.
That’s an ideal target for Hawaii’s tourism industry: older, likely with a job, disposable income, eager to visit new places to catch new Pokémon to add to their Pokédex, and likely to engage in low-impact activities like strolling through Ala Moana Center.
A number of Pokémon-related attractions have drawn enthusiastic fans to the Hilton Village in Hawaii. (Kathleen Toth Fox/Civil Beat/2024)
Martin has already visited Kauai, staying at the 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay, and posted a video of the experience that has garnered 171,000 views. (He’s also traveled all over the world playing the game, to places like Germany, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and France.)
Last weekend in Maui, I met a family of four from Massachusetts who were in town for a tournament. The eldest son, Russell Monteiro, had qualified for a Pokémon TCG (trading card game) event.
To be completely honest, I saw Martin at the Pokémon Go Fest in Sendai this year and decided to check out airfare to Japan.
Pokémon isn’t just family fun, with cards, apps, and Nintendo Switch games, it’s also full of opportunities for Hawaii. In July, New York City hosted its annual Pokémon Go Fest, which drew more than 74,000 players and fans to Randall’s Island Park over three days. (My son’s classmate and his father flew from Honolulu to New York City just to take a walk and play the game.)
Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, said that its annual Pokémon Go Fest, which will be held in 2023, generated a combined $323 million in economic impact for the local economies of the three host cities of New York, London and Osaka. More than 194,000 people attended the in-person event.
By comparison, the 2023 UEFA Champions League final is expected to bring about $80 million to host city Istanbul, while Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert in Kansas City the same year brought $48 million to the local economy, it added.
Hawaii has explored many different ways to attract well-intentioned, affluent tourists to its islands, from promoting wellness programs to hosting professional sporting events. Perhaps we need to cast our net in a different direction.
As the Pokémon saying goes, “Gotta catch ’em all.”
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