Visitors coming to Hawaii topped 400 arrivals for the sixth consecutive day
Out-of-state visitor arrivals to Hawaii rose to 509 on Saturday, the sixth day in a row that incoming arrivals topped 400.
Visitor arrivals are still low compared to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels when an average of 30,000 passengers a day flew into Hawaii. However, they are expected to pick up slightly as source markets reopen for business and the Hawaii relaxes some of its COVID-19-related lockdowns.
Visitor counts plummeted after March 26 when the state instituted a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine for passengers and expanded it to interisland flights on April 1.
Only 4,564 visitors traveled to Hawaii last month, according to HTA preliminary statistics.
That’s a 99.5% drop compared with a year ago when 856,250 visitors came by air and cruise ship. HTA did not provide a spending estimate for this April’s visitors, but it would have been minuscule compared with the $1.3 billion that visitors to Hawaii spent in April 2019.
Counts started rising again on Monday after Gov. David Ige announced that he would lift the interisland passenger quarantine on June. 16.
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Ige said last week that he planned to make an announcement this week that would include a future reopening date for broader tourism; however, he’s expected to extend the trans-Pacific quarantine beyond the current June 30 expiration.
Hawaii Tourism Authority reported today that 1,656 passengers arrived in Hawaii on Saturday. The passengers included 432 residents and 133 people who intended to relocate to Hawaii. The 20 flights that came into Hawaii Saturday also included:157 airline crew members, 140 transit passengers who did not intend to leave the airport and 220 military members. As many as 65 of the incoming passengers were exempted from the quarantine order.
As many as 75% of the Oahu visitors, who filled out a state DOT travel form, said they were coming to Hawaii to visit with friends and family. About 12% of respondents said they were coming for vacation, while 5% said they came for business and nearly 2% said they were coming to Hawaii to relocate. The percentages don’t total 100% because 35 people chose not to answer questions about the purpose of their visit. Also, respondents can chose more than one answer.
