Growth in visitor numbers outpaces spending

Growth in Hawaii’s tourism industry continued in September, although visitor arrivals outpaced visitor spending.

Arrivals last month increased 5 percent year-over-year to 701,833 visitors, and spending rose to $1.2 billion — up nearly 2 percent from September 2016, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA).

While Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island all saw an increase in the number of visitors in September, there was a drop in arrivals from the U.S. East, Hawaii’s second-largest market. But there was a bump in the core U.S. West market; Hawaii’s largest international market, Japan; Canada; and all other international markets including Europe, Oceania, Latin America and Asian nations outside of Japan.

The amount of money visitors spent was up on the three larger neighbor islands but down on Oahu. Domestic visitors spent more in September, while spending by international visitors dropped. Overall, September spending was depressed by a nearly 2 percent drop in the average length of stay, which was nearly 8.5 days. Per-person per-day spending also dropped just over 1 percent to nearly $206.

While the monthly results were good, they weren’t aligned with HTA’s goal of achieving tourism growth through higher spending rather than greater numbers of visitors, said Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates LLC, who previously served on the HTA board.

“The focus forward needs to be on visitor spending — higher spending is how we want to grow tourism,” Vieira said.

Vieira said there should be greater emphasis on attracting first-time visitors, who tend to spend more on accommodations, activities and food. He also said tourism officials need to keep an eye on the shift to alternative accommodations, which tend to attract lower-spending visitors.

According to HTA data, the number of travelers who came by air and planned to stay in a hotel was up to a total of 452,436, a 4 percent rise over September 2016. But the popularity of alternative accommodations is climbing, as evidenced by a nearly 17 percent rise to 9,074 visitors who stayed in a private room in a private home. Visitors who planned to stay in a rental home increased just over 8 percent to 44,537, and those who booked a bed-and-breakfast increased to 7,995, a 9 percent gain from September 2016.

“We have to look at the type of visitor we are attracting. The Airbnb visitor is going to Costco buying cold cuts. The reason we love the Asian market is that they tend to sell by view, which means they will spend more for a hotel room and will usually eat in the hotel, too,” Vieira said.

Still, September’s gains contributed to strong results through the first three quarters. For the first nine months of the year, visitor arrivals rose nearly 5 percent to 7,017,268 visitors, and spending increased by 7 percent to nearly $12.6 billion.

“The hard work by Hawaii’s tourism industry professionals has produced strong results in the first three quarters of this year and continues to contribute significantly to the health of the state’s economy,” said HTA president and CEO George D. Szigeti.

Szigeti said the results “generated $1.47 billion in tax revenue for the state, a gain of $96.5 million from last year’s pace.”

They also keep Hawaii on track to achieve its sixth consecutive year of growth in both visitor arrivals and spending with continued gains expected. The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism’s Aug. 11 forecast anticipates visitor spending will reach $16.8 billion this year when 290,000 more visitors arrive than last year, bringing the total to 9.2 million.

“We had a very strong September and a very strong nine months of the year, and we’ll have a very strong first quarter,” said Jack Richards, president and CEO of Pleasant Holidays LLC, Hawaii’s largest travel seller. “Advance bookings for 2018 show that we are up double digits over this year, which was a very strong year. We’ve got bookings all the way into 2019.”