Date of Award
2025
Degree Type
Open Access Master's Thesis
Degree Name
History, MA
Program
School of Arts and Humanities
Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair
Joanna Poblete
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
Joshua Goode
Terms of Use & License Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Rights Information
© 2025 Kendall H Acker
Keywords
Cultural tourism, Disney aulani resort, Hawaii, Indigenous representation, Native hawaiian, Oʻahu
Subject Categories
History
Abstract
This thesis examines the intersection of cultural tourism and luxury branding with settler colonial dynamics in Oʻahu’s high-end hospitality industry. Focusing on Disney’s Aulani Resort, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, and the Moana Surf Rider, the study investigates how Hawaiian culture is performed, curated, and commodified as part of a five-star guest experience. Through ethnographic research and interviews with Native Hawaiian performers, artists, and cultural advisors, it traces how Indigenous identity is shaped by the demands of the tourism economy and the aesthetics of authenticity. These hotels function not only as sites of leisure but also as stages of cultural performance where issues of labour, sovereignty, and representation are continuously negotiated. Grounded in Indigenous studies, performance theory, and critical tourism studies, the thesis argues that the politics of luxury in Hawaiʻi are inseparable from the logics of colonial tourism, where Native culture is marketed as experience while underlying structures of settler colonialism persist.
ISBN
9798293801848
Recommended Citation
Acker, Kendall Hutchison. (2025). The Price Tag of a 5-Star Culture: Cultural Performance and the Politics of Luxury in Oʻahu’s Hotel Industry. CGU Theses & Dissertations, 1010. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/1010.
