Hawaii tourism, which is expected to post its third straight year of record arrivals when the 2014 numbers are announced later this month, could be on its way to a fast start in 2015.
Airline seats to the state are expected to increase 6.1 percent during the first quarter over the year-earlier period to 2.9 million, according to recent data released by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
Arrivals from the mainland are projected to jump 9.2 percent to 1.9 million with increases from Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, New York and San Jose, Calif.
But international air seats are expected to rise just 0.5 percent to 979,435. The suspension of service from Manila, Taipei and Fukuoka, Japan, to Honolulu were significant factors in the loss of seats from Asia. However, new routes from Toronto and Brisbane, Australia, helped pick up the slack overall from international destinations.
Although increased air seats don’t necessarily lead to more visitor arrivals, they usually are a reliable indicator since airlines add and drop routes due to passenger demand.
"As an island state, access to and from the Hawaiian Islands is key to the sustainability of our visitor industry," said David Uchiyama, HTA vice president of brand management. "We anticipated seeing a bump in airlift to the state this year, particularly from North America, largely due to a redeployment of aircrafts from international routes to domestic routes from U.S. carriers."
"It is important that we continue to work collaboratively with our industry partners to ensure there is sufficient demand to sustain this sudden influx of air seats," Uchiyama said.
Air seats from the U.S. West, Hawaii’s core market, are forecast to rise 9.5 percent to 1.7 million during the January-March period, while U.S. East air seats are expected to increase 6.6 percent to 218,947.
Air seats from Japan, the state’s top international market, are expected to fall 7 percent to 480,550. Demand from Japan has decreased due to the weakening of the yen against the U.S. dollar.
Other Asia markets, which include China, South Korea and Taiwan, are forecast to fall 13.1 percent to 113,892.
Oceania, which includes Australia and New Zealand, will be the strongest market with air seats increasing 21.9 percent to 120,383.
The market classified as "other," which includes Guam, Manila and American Samoa, will rise 21.3 percent to 77,741.
