New rules for quarantining Hawaii visitors didn’t stop more from coming Friday

The Hawaii Tourism Authority reported today that 260 out-of-state visitors came to Hawaii by air on Friday, the heaviest day for visitor traffic since Hawaii’s tourism lockdown started.

On March 26, the state began a mandatory 14-day self quarantine for trans-Pacific passengers. Some 268 visitors were among the passengers that day.

Altogether, 812 trans-Pacific passengers arrived Friday, including 267 residents. On the 19 flights that came, there also were 159 airline crew members, 37 transit passengers who are catching other flights and 87 intended new residents for Oahu and two for Maui. Some 243 visitors traveled to Oahu, eight went to Lihue, five to Maui and four to Kona.

The state defines visitors as everyone with an out-of-state ID who plans to leave Hawaii after a period of time. Intended residents are those with out-of-state IDs who say they plan to stay here. The intended residents category might include military personnel, college students, people moving to Hawaii to live with their families, and homeless individuals.

Arriving passenger counts remain well below last year when most of the 30,000 or so passengers arriving daily were visitors. In April 2019, 856,250 visitors came to Hawaii.

From March 26 through Friday, HTA reported that only 6,341 visitors came to Hawaii. That’s still too many for some, including state lawmakers who are working to close loopholes in the quarantine and hold more violators accountable.

Gov. David Ige’s latest proclamation banned rental car companies from renting to anyone who is under a 14-day quarantine.

HTA also has asked hotels to issue single-use room keys to quarantining guests upon check-in. HTA and the state Department of Transportation also have made improvements to the way they screen arriving passengers at the airport and make compliance checks.