Visitor arrivals on track to top record

Hawaii’s visitor industry achieved its best midyear performance ever, putting it on pace to achieve its fifth consecutive record-setting year.

June visitor arrivals rose 4.2 percent to 800,263 visitors, while spending climbed 4.3 percent to $1.4 billion, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. These solid monthly gains helped put midyear arrivals and spending ahead of the record pace for 2015, when about 8.65 million visitors spent an estimated $15.2 billion.

HTA’s 2016 targets anticipate a 1.6 percent gain in spending to $15.9 billion and a 3.5 percent increase in arrivals to nearly 8.8 million. So far, the industry is on its way. For the first half of 2016, total visitor arrivals to the state increased 3.3 percent to 4,415,801 visitors, while visitor expenditures rose 1.6 percent to $7.7 billion.

“If we continue at this same pace through the end of the year, we will exceed last year’s record,” said Daniel Nahoopii, HTA director of tourism research.

During the first two quarters, visitors pumped $119.3 million more into Hawaii’s economy than they did during the same period in 2015. Tourist spending produced $820.7 million in state tax revenue, another midyear record.

“We are especially heartened by these results through the first half of the year, as our two largest tourism markets, U.S. West and U.S. East, carried the bulk of Hawaii’s success, bolstered by the new international markets that HTA has been working hard to develop,” HTA President and CEO George Szigeti said in a news release. “Hawaii also had strong results for the month of June, infusing us with confidence that the peak summer travel season will prove to be very fruitful.”

Teri Orton, general manager of the Hawai‘i Convention Center, said June was an exceptional month for the facility, which performed “extremely well” during the first two quarters of the year.

“For every dollar spent by HCC, we returned $17.02 to the state,” Orton said.

Mufi Hannemann, president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association (HLTA), said Hawaii is blessed to be going on its fifth straight year of increases when a three-year upcycle is a more typical pattern.

“Everyone is working hard to make sure the product is appealing and the prices are competitive,” Hannemann said. “We just need to keep the momentum going so we can ride the wave.”

All these years of gains have been good for Hawaii’s economy and for the perception that the visitor industry benefits Hawaii residents. But success has come at a cost, according to the latest resident sentiment survey, conducted by Qmark on behalf of HTA and released Thursday. Only 66 percent of the 1,600 residents who participated in the survey, which was conducted between October and December, said they strongly agreed with the statement, “Tourism has brought more benefits than problems.”

As the visitor industry has grown, there’s been a decline in the percentage of Hawaii residents who support the statement that tourism has been “mostly positive for you and your family.” Nahoopii said that measurement fell to 40 percent in 2015, its lowest point since the survey began. In 1988, the survey’s first year, 60 percent of residents who were asked that question agreed tourism had been “mostly positive.”

The sentiment that “this island is being run for tourists at the expense of local people” also has been slowing its increase, Nahoopii said.

“Most residents in Hawaii feel economic benefit is important, but then you have the trade-off,” he said. “Residents understand the benefits that they are getting out of tourism and HTA’s work, but there are also personal impacts.”

Szigeti said the visitor industry is often blamed for construction and traffic. He’s also getting negative emails about alternative visitor accommodations.

“People don’t want them next to them,” he said.