The only thing robust about Hawaii’s spring break tourist season this year are the discounts.

Normally, hunting for a kamaaina special at Hawaii hotels during spring break season is challenging. But this year, the Golden Goose isn’t laying as many eggs.

It’s a sign of the softness that the Kahala Hotel &Resort put out an offer for 40% off its best rate for Hawaii residents through March, and other Hawaii hotels also are heavily recruiting visitors and locals to fill empty rooms.

The daily count of visitors in Hawaii and their daily spending dropped in February — the seventh monthly decline in a row since the Aug. 8 Maui wildfires, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

In February, DBEDT reported that on average, there were 236,008 visitors each day in the Hawaiian Islands, down 3.2% from the daily visitor census in February 2023, and a decrease of 4.4% from February 2019. Visitors spent $57.1 million per day on average in February, a 2.4% decline from February 2023 but up 15.2% from February 2019.

Since 2024 is a leap year, the daily comparison is more accurate. Monthly results reflected the loss of a day in 2019 and 2023.

Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance President Jerry Gibson said any way you slice it, the market was soft in February. Gibson said that softness has continued into the spring break season, which spans about three weeks and is the precursor to the peak summer season.

“February definitely wasn’t a month to remember. So far over spring break, the industry is definitely down a few occupancy points and the rates are down a bit. You are going to see more marketing with the hotels,” he said. “Usually there are not a lot of kamaaina specials for spring break. The hotels are trying to fill up a bit. Kauai is doing fairly well and the Kona Coast is doing fairly well, but Maui is down on the south side and the west side and Oahu has a lot of inventory that we still need to fill.”

Gibson said the future booking pace is not doing well either.

“The next 90 days is just very marginal at this point, and it looks to me like July and August are off a few points from the previous year,” he said. “However, we could see some pickup as the booking window is shorter and people are booking as close in as 30 days. They are looking for deals right now and they are getting them. It’s not just hotels; there are discounts for airfare and activities, too.”

Some softness already had emerged in Hawaii’s core domestic tourism source market before the Maui wildfires. After the tragedy, the downturn grew in part because of confusion about whether tourists were welcome in Hawaii and what destinations were open.

Hawaii also is competing with pent-up demand from U.S. travelers for destinations like Japan and Europe that were slower to reopen after the pandemic and where the exchange rates allowed them to stretch their dollars.

Indeed, compared to last year, DBEDT statistics show that the average daily census had decreased in all North American markets. It was down 6% from Hawaii’s core U.S. West; 10.6% from Hawaii’s second-largest visitor source market, the U.S. East; and 9.4% from Canada.

The average daily visitor census in February was up 77.2% from Japan compared to February 2023 and up 18% from the category DBEDT calls “ all other markets,” which includes all international markets outside of Japan and Canada. However, the gains were because most of Hawaii’s international markets have yet to recover from the COVID-19 drop.

Other signs of weakness included a 2.3% year-over-year drop in the average length of stay, which fell to 8.86 days this February. Also, the average visitor spending per day only rose 1% year over year to nearly $242, and the average spending per trip fell 1.3% to nearly $2,144.

DBEDT Director James Tokioka said in a statement, “The visitor statistics indicate that our tourism industry continues to be soft. The main reasons for the weakness include the continued impact of the Maui wildfires and the shift of U.S. and Canadian visitors to other international destinations due to currency appreciation. The currency situation is expected to improve when the Federal Reserve starts to cut interest rates during the second half of 2024.”

Tokioka said a bright spot is the continued recovery of Japan and other international visitor source markets.

“With Gov. Green’s most recent trip to Japan to strengthen tourism opportunities in partnership with the U.S. government, the Japanese government and the private sector, we are optimistic about the outcomes to support travel and economic growth for Hawaii and Japan,” he said.

Hawai‘i Tourism Authority Board Chair Mufi Hanne­mann, also president and CEO of the Hawai‘i Lodging and Tourism Association, said Japanese visitors are responding well to Hawai‘i Tourism Japan’s pivot from the Malama (take care of ) Hawaii campaign to the Beautiful Hawaii and Yappari (It’s Got To Be Hawaii) campaigns, which showcase reasons to come to Hawaii.

Hannemann said another success is the Maukaukau (We are ready) Maui campaign, which featured local residents and businesses inviting visitors back to Maui after the wildfires. He said the Hawai‘i Visitors &Convention Bureau, the HTA contractor that markets to U.S. visitors, also is planning to pivot soon from its main malama message.

“The industry is concerned that the spring was soft. They’ve been asking for a more inviting message to welcome people back and let them know that residents want them back,” Hannemann said. “We think this will be a nice push for summer.”

Hannemann said the HTA board gave HVCB an extra $900,000 in January from the tourism emergency special fund to help support Maui’s tourism recovery. He said the HTA board also approved a larger fiscal year budget for HVCB, which will get $15 million in July.