The deals are up but travelers are way down for summer through the end of the year in Hawaii, especially
on Maui.
Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance, said, “We’re not feeling too good about the summer. Even though we had a bump in June, I think we were all hoping the end of spring would be a little better than it was all the way around the horn.”
He added, “Usually summer, June 1 to Aug. 15, is our highest-rated period, and the rates aren’t up to our expectations. There are a lot of deals out there such as buy five nights, get one free. It’s a good time to visit Hawaii.”
The downward trend has been building for some time. May was the 11th month in a row that the average daily census of visitors in Hawaii dropped, according to the most recent visitor industry statistics available, which were released Thursday by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. On any given day in May, DBEDT reported that there were 209,543 visitors in the Hawaiian Islands, down 7% from May 2023.
Jennifer Chun, DBEDT director of tourism research, presented these statistics to the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority board Thursday and said, “We seeing a continuation of slower lagging visitor arrivals compared to 2023, and also expenditures are lower, too.”
Arrivals to the state declined 4.8% year over year to 763,260 visitors. Visitor arrivals in May fell for Hawaii’s core U.S. West and U.S. East markets, as well
as for Canada and the category called “all others,” which includes international markets outside of
Japan and Canada, and for cruise ships. Arrivals rose from Japan, which was Hawaii’s top international market before the pandemic and has lagged other markets in its recovery.
Total visitor spending measured in nominal dollars in May was $1.62 billion, a drop of 4% compared with May 2023. Spending in May fell year over year for all
visitor-source markets except Japan.
Interim HTA President and CEO Daniel Naho‘opi‘i said HTA and its industry partners are working hard
to ensure that visitors know that they are welcome to visit Maui, but some uncertainty has lingered since the devastating Maui wildfires on Aug. 8. Naho‘opi‘i said other islands also have experienced fire-related dampening as some visitors are geographically challenged.
Naho‘opi‘i said another reason is that travelers from Hawaii’s core North America markets are not coming at levels robust enough to offset the continued drop from Japan, which was Hawaii’s top international market before the pandemic, and due to an unfavorable exchange rate and other challenges has lagged other markets in its recovery.
He said HTA’s contractor, the Hawaii Visitors and
Convention Bureau, has launched a new marketing campaign to address the domestic decline. Naho‘opi‘i added that HVCB also plans on a marketing saturation campaign for Los Angeles,
a critical market for Hawaii.
“The fall shoulder season may fill, and we may have time to move the needle for the festive period, but it won’t cause 2024 to surpass 2023,” he said.
DBEDT reported that the state’s core U.S. West tourism-source market in May saw visitor arrivals drop 6.5% to 403,981 visitors,
and spending fall 5.8% to $767.9 million. Visitor arrivals from the U.S. East declined to 209,711, a 3.8% drop from May 2023. Visitor spending from the U.S. East dropped 3.7% to $539.4 million.
DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka said in a statement, “Though the U.S. market is weakening, arrivals in May 2024 were still 4.5% higher than the same month in 2019.”
However, he added that “the recovery from Japan was much lower than expected due to the depreciation of the Japanese currency. The 46,124 visitors from Japan in May were the lowest during the past 12 months.”
Chun noted that Japan
is the only market that showed an increase in expenditures versus Ma 2023. DBEDT reported visitor spending by travelers from Japan increased 25.8% to $68.4 million.
However, she said, “if you look at 2019, it’s less than half of what 2019 was.”
Chun said even though arrivals from Japan were up 35% in May, they were still down 60% from May 2019.
“As HTA member Blaine (Miyasato from Hawaiian Airlines) points out, ‘We have more than enough air seats, they just aren’t coming.’”
Tokioka said air seats to Hawaii were flat during the first five months of this year but will increase 2.4% as currently scheduled from June through August.
Chun said air ticket booking trends show that what is on the books now compared with pre-pandemic times is lagging.
“June was a big lag. July
is soft. August is soft,” she said. “It gets a little better as we go through the fall, but in general when you look at all the tickets that people are booking to Hawaii compared to the same time in 2019, it is behind.”
Keith Vieira, principal of KV and Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said tourism
results across the islands have been influenced by Maui County, which is still reeling from the negative impact of the Aug. 8 wildfires on tourism.
“Other areas are soft but not like Maui, especially West Maui,” he said.
DBEDT reported in May that Maui saw a 25.4% drop in visitor arrivals to 179,233 and a 27.1% decline in spending, which fell to $382 million. Arrivals to Molokai fell 26.4% to 2,498 while spending declined 24.3% to $2.5 million. Arrivals on Lanai plummeted 47.2% to 3,460 while spending fell 29.8% to $8.2 million.
Visitor arrivals to Oahu grew 4.8% to 473,837 from May 2023, but spending during that time rose only 0.2% to $725.4 million.
Kauai saw a 0.3% drop
in arrivals to 115,135 and
a 26.6% gain in spending, which increased to
$262.1 million. Arrivals on Hawaii island fell 2.2% to 133,352 while spending
rose 12.7% to $239.7 million.
Visitor arrivals by cruise ships dropped 51.1% to 5,420 while spending fell 67% to $2 million.
HTA board Chair Mufi Hannemann, who also is president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging &Tourism Association, said the soft numbers have inspired Hawaii’s private industry to reach out to HTA to see how it might augment HVCB’s latest campaign, “The People. The Place. The Hawaiian Islands.”
“The numbers are not good. There’s no question, we cannot stand pat,” Hannemann said. “We have to be proactive.”
Vieira estimates it will take some $6 million to $10 million to make an impact.
“Even (the peak) festive season looks soft at this point,” he said. “We have to be aggressive. This is not a situation where the numbers will all of the sudden go up.”
Vieira said the spending is justified as Hawaii’s tourism industry supports many jobs and fuels the economy in many ways, including tax collections.
Tokioka said the May decline alone decreased state general excise tax revenue collections by 1.1% year over year and transient accommodation tax revenue collections by 12.9%.
