Tourism numbers continue to rise

Visitor arrivals and spending in the islands increased for the 11th straight month in April, keeping Hawaii on track to reach its sixth consecutive year of record tourism.

The state expects tourist arrivals to grow to 9.1 million this year, a 1.5 percent gain from last year, and spending will likely climb by 2.9 percent to $16.2 billion. Arrivals in 2016 rose 3 percent to 8.9 million, while spending increased 4 percent to $15.6 billion.

Arrivals, visitor spending, visitor days and daily spending are ahead of the forecast pace, said Jennifer Chun, tourism research manager for the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

The results have left Hawaii tourism leaders optimistic that the state will achieve simultaneous year-end records in arrivals and spending. If that happens, 2012 to 2017 will become the longest streak where both visitor arrivals and visitor spending increased in consecutive years since 1966 to 1979.

“We’ve had a good start to the year 2017,” HTA president and CEO George Szigeti said Thursday during an HTA board meeting. “Now, as we get ready to enter peak season this summer, we hope we’ll continue to sustain the momentum. There’s a lot going on in the world that quite frankly is a concern and may throw some challenges our way.”

Chun said Hawaii’s core domestic markets could be affected by a cooling of consumer confidence. Further drops in the Canadian and Australian dollars also pose challenges for attracting travelers, Chun said.

Conflict with North Korea and the spread of rat lungworm, a rare brain parasite that has sickened more than a dozen people in Hawaii, also have been top of mind for some tourism leaders. But so far this year, none of these issues has halted overall tourism growth.

In April, visitors to Hawaii rose to 752,964, an 8 percent year-over-year gain, according to preliminary data released Thursday by HTA. Visitor spending also grew 9 percent from April 2016 to $1.3 billion. The gains came even though available airline seats to Hawaii in April stayed flat at 978,406.

“Hawaii’s four largest visitor markets all generated strong results for visitor spending and arrivals, which were felt across the four major islands,” Szigeti said. “Maui, Kauai and the island of Hawaii all reporting double-digit growth in visitor spending.”

Spending from U.S. West visitors, Hawaii’s top market, rose 17 percent in April to $490 million, while arrivals grew 9 percent to 321,877. Visitors from the U.S. East spent $299 million, up 12 percent from the prior year. U.S. East arrivals increased 11 percent to 147,532.

Spending by visitors from Japan, Hawaii’s top international market, grew 5 percent to $146 million, while arrivals increased 8 percent to 109,604. Canadian visitor arrivals rose 18 percent to 48,952, while spending grew 22 percent to $91 million.

Visitor arrivals for the category called all others, which includes international markets outside of Japan and Canada, rose 2 percent to 109,818 visitors; however, combined spending from these markets fell 8 percent to $221 million.

Jerry Gibson, area vice president of Hilton Hawaii, said he was pleased to see strong North American results, including a rebound from Canada, which had been having a tough couple of years. However, Gibson said he is concerned about dampening from Korea and Australia, markets that Hawaii has invested heavily in growing.

“We are doing well East and West with the U.S. We’re getting a nice offset there, but I’m a bit leery of some of our markets that are falling off. We’ll see shortly if that’s a trend,” Gibson said. “Korea has been an expanding market for us. This may be geopolitical. Currency may be impacting the Australia market.”

Gibson said overall he’s happy about the visitor industry run-up. Arrivals and spending counts have been rising since May 2016.

For the first four months of 2017, visitor spending rose 10 percent to $5.6 billion, and visitor arrivals climbed 4 percent to just over 3 million. Through April, Szigeti said, tourism has produced $657 million in tax revenue statewide, which is an increase of $60 million, or 10 percent, over last year

But Gibson cautions that the dip in some markets like Korea and Australia might be a sign that the latest cycle is nearing an end.

“In most cases in Hawaii, we have a fairly good run for eight years. We are now seven years into the cycle. Everyone has to have radar out and make sure that we do the best that we can going forward. We need to keep the good marketing going. We can’t rest on our laurels.”