It’s heartening to see Hawaii tourism continue its steady, post-pandemic recovery, led by U.S. arrivals in June exceeding June 2019 levels. Travelers from the U.S. West, in particular, were of interest: Though arrivals were down last month compared with June 2022 (498,358 visitors, -2.2%), their $1.01 billion in spending surpassed June 2022’s $963.3 million. Fewer tourists, but spending more — a good thing.

Still, Japanese arrivals were lagging considerably — but state officials expect and hope those numbers will recover to about half of 2019 levels by year’s end.