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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 Pokemon World Championships going on this weekend in Honolulu.

I was surrounded by dozens of YouTubers and social media influencers — all armed with iPhones and vlogging equipment, some even wearing Pokemon-themed aloha shirts — who flew in for this event.

They didn’t seem like your typical Hawaii visitors, especially considering many of them were wandering around the Pokemon Worlds Trainer Town, talking into their cameras or playing Pokemon Go on their smartphones. It’s hard to say whether they noticed the nearby beach or swaying palm trees.

But their followers will.

Honolulu is hosting the Pokemon World Championships for the first time ever. (The Big Island has hosted it three times at the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort, the last time in 2012.) According to event organizers, there are more than 3,000 people from over 50 countries and regions competing in this weekend’s event at the Hawaii Convention Center — most of whom brought family and friends — and another 14,000 attendees who have signed up to watch.

That doesn’t include the thousands of people who weren’t able to get a time slot to shop at the Pokemon Center Worlds Store or a badge to attend the in-person activities at the center — but who have been visiting Trainer Town at the Hilton Hawaiian Village to meet Pokemon characters and play Pokemon-themed games for free.

According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, the estimated visitor spending during this event is over $57 million, with a tax generation of $6.7 million. (HTA didn’t help fund this event but has been working with The Pokemon Company to bring it to the state.)

And millions of eyes will be on the islands, courtesy of these influencers.

I started playing Pokemon Go two years ago. I’d like to say I signed up for my now-7-year-old son — which is technically true, that was the impetus — but I play it way more than he does. The mobile game, which is one of the competitive events in the Pokemon World Championship, requires you to walk around to catch, evolve and battle Pokemon. And since there are Pokemon characters specific to certain places — Comfey, for example, is a lei-type Pokemon that can only be caught in Hawaii — serious trainers (that’s what we’re called) like to travel, too.

One of the YouTubers we follow — Brandon Martyn (@mystic7) — is here, and his most recent video, shot in Waikiki, already has over 124,000 views. (Martyn, who has been vlogging for 11 years, boasts 2.73 million subscribers on YouTube.)

Jonathan Gilyana (@JTGily), another Pokemon Go player and YouTuber with 380,000 subscribers, uploaded a video of himself trying to catch a Shiny Shadow Lugia — trust me, it’s a cool Pokemon — in
Waikiki; that video has over 35,000 views and growing.

It’s hard to nail down stats on Pokemon Go player demographics. But according to a variety of sources online — and my personal observations — it appears the game, which has around on average a month, is played mostly by the older set, ages 35 to 54 (like me). Teens and young adults may have downloaded the game when it first came out, but aren’t actively playing anymore.

This is an ideal target for Hawaii’s tourism industry: Older, likely employed with disposable income, eager to visit new places to catch new Pokemon to add to their Pokedex. And they likely will do low-impact activities like, oh, walking around Ala Moana Center.

Already Martyn has been to Kauai — he stayed at 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay — and posted a video about it, with 171,00 views. (He travels the world — Germany, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, France — playing the game.)

I met a family of four from Massachusetts on Maui this past weekend who were in town for the competition; the oldest son, Russell Monteiro, qualified to compete in the Pokemon TCG (trading card game) event.

I’m not going to lie: Watching Martyn at Pokemon Go Fest this year in Sendai City pushed me to look up airfare to Japan.

Pokemon — the cards, the app, the Ninendo Switch game — is family-friendly and fun, and full of opportunity for Hawaii. In July, New York City hosted the annual Pokemon Go Fest, luring more than 74,000 players and fans to Randall’s Island Park over three days. (My son’s classmate and dad flew from Honolulu to New York City just to walk around and play the game.)

According to Niantic, , the annual Pokemon Go Fest in 2023 generated a combined $323 million for the local economies of the three cities that hosted — New York City, London and Osaka. More than 194,000 people attended the in-person events.

By comparison, the 2023 Union of European Football Association (UEFA) Champions League final was projected to bring about $80 million to the host city of Istanbul, the company added, and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour shows in Kansas City that year generated $48 million for the local economy.

Hawaii has looked at different ways to bring well-meaning — and affluent — visitors to the Islands, from promoting wellness programs to professional sporting events. Maybe we need to cast the net out in a different direction.

As the Pokemon saying goes, “Gotta catch ʻem all.”