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Hawaii News

Travel advisories in West Coast states could hit Hawaii hard

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                A Southwest Airlines 737 aircraft comes in for a landing on Oct. 2 at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
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JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

A Southwest Airlines 737 aircraft comes in for a landing on Oct. 2 at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

Three governors from Hawaii’s top tourist feeder markets issued travel advisories Friday urging against nonessential out-of-state trips and asking people to self-quarantine for 14 days after arriving from another state or country.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued the advisories amid another surge in U.S. COVID-19 cases. The U.S. coronavirus death toll was more than 244,000 Friday.

The advisories define essential travel as “travel for work and study, critical infrastructure support, economic services and supply chains, health, immediate medical care and safety and security.”

In addition to encouraging quarantines, the state’s travel advisories recommend limiting interaction to immediate households and keeping travel plans in-state.

The advisories seek voluntary compliance; however, members of Hawaii’s visitor industry, including Hawaii Tourism Authority President and CEO John De Fries, say they are likely to dampen travel demand to Hawaii.

“I have to compliment the governors for initiating the advisory,” De Fries said. “Hawaii will have to continue to watch this. You can presume it’s going to have an impact on Hawaii tourism. At the moment it is voluntary, at the moment we are counting on people using better judgment. But we can also presume that if it doesn’t flatten the curve, they might take more stringent action.”

California is Hawaii’s largest single state contributor to visitor arrivals. In 2019, California supplied 2.6 million of Hawaii’s 10.4 million visitors. Some 628,836 visitors came to Hawaii from Washington in 2019, and 281,280 came from Oregon.

U.S. West arrivals to Hawaii have been dramatically smaller since COVID-19. However, Hawaii’s pre-arrival testing program, which kicked off Oct. 15 and paved a way to begin recovering trans-Pacific tourism, has mostly revolved around visitors from the U.S. West.

Most of the state’s trusted travel partners are from the U.S. West region, especially California. Travelers from other regions can still get tested; although, it’s much more difficult and far less convenient even with the recent addition of more trusted testing partners.

Hawaii’s tourism restart has focused on the U.S. West because a high percentage of Hawaii’s repeat visitor market comes from there. Also, flights from the U.S. West Coast are shorter at a time when long-haul travel is giving some travel- ers pause.

De Fries said even before the governors’ travel advisories, Hawaii tourism officials were only expecting 2021 to bring anywhere from 1.4 million to 2.1 million U.S. visitors — that’s down from more than 7 million in 2019.

“We are all learning our way through this, and there will be all kinds of course adjustments,” he said.

Newsom said in a statement discussing the travel advisory that California had “just surpassed a sobering threshold — 1 million COVID-19 cases — with no signs of the virus slowing down.”

“Increased cases are adding pressure on our hospital systems and threatening the lives of seniors, essential workers and vulnerable Californians,” he said. “Travel increases the risk of spreading COVID-19, and we must all collectively increase our efforts at this time to keep the virus at bay and save lives.”

Brown said in a statement, “COVID-19 does not stop at state lines. As hospitals across the West are stretched to capacity, we must take steps to ensure travelers are not bringing this disease home with them.”

“If you do not need to travel, you shouldn’t,” she said. “This will be hard, especially with Thanksgiving around the corner. But the best way to keep your family safe is to stay close to home.”

Inslee said in a statement that COVID cases have doubled in Washington over the past two weeks.

“This puts our state in as dangerous a position today as we were in March,” Inslee said. “Limiting and reducing travel is one way to reduce the further spread of the disease. I am happy to partner with California and Oregon in this effort to help protect lives up and down the West Coast.”

De Fries suggested that Hawaii residents also consider respecting the advisories by limiting their own trips to the U.S. West during the surge.

“We want to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to keep local residents and visitors safe,” De Fries said.

Jack Richards, CEO and president of California-based Pleasant Holidays, said it’s too soon to tell how much the advisories will affect U.S. West Coast travel demand for Hawaii.

“It’s voluntary, that’s the key. But anytime the California governor issues a statement not to travel, that’s a problem. People who were hesitant to travel likely won’t travel,” Richards said. “We are monitoring the West Coast situation and trying to get clarification.”

Richards said COVID-19 cases on the mainland are climbing again, unfortunately, and even without the travel advisories the rise would have weakened travel demand.

“Over the last two weeks, we’ve seen a definite slowdown in travel bookings. We chalked the first week up to the election,” he said. “Now it’s likely because of the climb in COVID cases, and we expect it’s only going to get worse after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, a lot of lockdowns are coming.”

Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, said even if the travel advisories from the three West Coast governors stay voluntary, he expects that they will disrupt Hawaii’s burgeoning tourism recovery.

“The travel advisories add to the confusion. They’ll make travelers second- guess what they want to do,” Vieira said. “It’s another challenge put in front of a traveler about not choosing Hawaii.”

Vieira said the advisories also suggest that California, Washington and Oregon residents stay within their own states to vacation.

“People will take that advice,” Vieira said. “I have a hunch that we’ll see a slowdown all the way into the first quarter, which will push our tourism recovery out. ”

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