Hawaii visitor arrivals up 12% in August

Hawaii’s visitor industry continued to rebound in August with 680,496 tourists coming to the state, up 11.8 percent from August 2009, the Hawaii Tourism Authority reported today.

Expenditures by visitors in August were up 30 percent, or $250.5 million, from August 2009, to $1.1 billion. The average daily visitor spending climbed to $172 per person from $153 per person a year ago.

Total arrivals by air rose 11.4 percent from August 2009 to 677,885 visitors, the ninth consecutive month of positive growth in air visitor arrivals since December 2009.  All top four visitor markets reported increased arrivals compared to August 2009, led by Canada (+24.7%), U.S. West (+13.6%), U.S. East (+8.8%), and Japan (+1.9%), the HTA said.

Total expenditures for the first eight months of 2010 were $7.5 billion, an increase of 12.7 percent compared to the first eight months of 2009, according to preliminary statistics. For the first eight months of 2010, total visitor days for all visitors grew 7.4 percent compared to year-to-date 2009, while total arrivals rose 7 percent to 4,760,314 visitors.