The Honolulu Festival returns to Oahu next weekend after a three-year pandemic-related hiatus, creating an opportunity to help normalize travel to Hawaii again for Japanese visitors whose return has lagged travelers’ from other destinations.

The festival, now in its 27th year, showcases the cultures of the Pacific Rim and always has been popular with visitors from Japan, who appreciate that the festival’s major significance is its ability to perpetuate the strong cultural ties between the Pacific Rim and Hawaii. Many locals are expected to attend the festival, which has a theme this year, “Connect With Aloha, Forward to the New Future,” that reflects the current stage of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the importance of forging connections, often through travel.

The event is expected to bring only 1,000 visitors from Japan, about a third of Japan’s normal festival attendance, when it returns March 10-12. Still, Honolulu Festival Foundation President Ted Kubo said the event, along with the coming Golden Week national holidays, April 29 and May 3 and 5, provides a critical opportunity to remind sometimes reticent Japanese travelers to come back to Hawaii.

Kubo, who also serves as president and CEO of JTB Hawaii Inc., said, “The entire JTB organization, including the sales team in Japan, all of us are positioning this festival as a catalyst. This is the beginning of the real comeback of the Japan market.”

Kubo is expecting arrivals from Japan to Hawaii will have recovered by March 2024 to 60% of their 2019 level, when more than 1.5 million visitors from Japan came to Hawaii. To do that, he said, visitor arrivals form Japan to Hawaii will need a higher than 50% recovery rate in the back half of the year to make up for a slower-than- expected start.

“We think we will see some surge in the summer,” he said.

Japan historically has been Hawaii’s top international tourism market, and the Oahu visitor industry has lagged other islands because of the isle’s dependence on Japan. Visitor arrivals from Japan to Hawaii, although vastly improved from 2022, have gotten off to a slower-than- expected start in 2023. There were 32,305 visitors from Japan in January, which was down more than 73% from January 2019 when 120,418 visitors from Japan came to Hawaii, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by the state Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism.

Sean Dee, Outrigger Hospitality Group executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said the weak yen to the dollar, rising inflation, fuel surcharges, incentives for Japanese residents to travel domestically and a more conservative government approach to COVID-19 have caused Japan to lag the recovery of other international markets to Hawaii.

To be sure, visitor arrivals from Canada in January reached 56,501 visitors, which represented an 81% recovery of the visitors who came to Hawaii in January 2019.

There were 89,689 visitors in January from the category “All Other International Markets,” a nearly 80% recovery of the international visitors from all other nations outside of Japan and Canada who visited Hawaii in January 2019.

Still, Dee said, “We are starting to see little green shoots.”

Dee said Outrigger’s Hawaii properties are starting to get a few hundred bookings a week from Japan. While bookings from Japan would normally be at least 50% higher depending on the property, Dee said the pace is steady enough for Outrigger to forecast a 50% recovery rate for the remainder of the year.

“We saw some pickup at the end of February and beginning of March,” Dee said. “It’s a combination of a lot of things. It’s events like (Honolulu Festival). The airlines also are making big investments, including opening up secondary markets.”

Kubo said travel to Hawaii from Japan should continue accelerating this year as the Japanese government continues normalizing COVID-19. He said travel sentiment should improve this month after the Japanese government lifts its mandatory mask mandate. Kubo said the Japanese government also is expected to downgrade COVID-19’s status to a flu-like rating — an action that “will change people’s mindsets toward travel.”

If the switch comes as expected, it would follow the traditional Golden Week national holiday travel period, which is historically a popular travel time because it prevents Japanese travelers from having to take as many vacation days off.

Dee said, “It’s not that ‘golden’ this year.”

However, this year’s Golden Week is expected to be an improvement over last year, 2020 and 2021, when travel was virtually nonexistent due to fear of COVID-19 and travel restrictions in Hawaii and Japan. In 2022, package tours from Japan, which had been absent in Hawaii for the first two years of the pandemic, came back in time for Golden Week. Still, the results were well below a normal pre-pandemic Golden Week, which typically draws 4,000 to 6,000 visitors to Hawaii daily.

HONOLULU FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

Cultural performances, arts and exhibits are on tap for the Honolulu Festival, which begins March 10 with educational school tours and a Friendship Gala and continues through March 12.

>> Weekend hours: 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. Sunday

>> Bon dances: Saturday, noon to 12:15 and 2:20-2:35 p.m.; Sunday, 12:20-12:35 p.m., at the Hawai‘i Convention Center

>> JTB Travel and Culture Seminar in Hawaii: 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Emalani Theater, Room 320

>> Movie presentations: Free screenings of four Japanese films at the Hawai‘i Convention Center

>> Kyushu Food Fair: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Festival’s first Japanese product fair held at the Hawai‘i Convention Center.

>> Sake & Food Fest: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Festival’s first sake cultural exhibition and sampling event. Food is available for purchase.

>> Waikiki Grand Parade: 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Kalakaua Avenue

>> Nagaoka Fireworks Show: 8:30 p.m. Sunday, lights up the skies over Waikiki Beach. Tune in to “Hawaiian 105KINE” as it will sync its music to the fireworks show.

>> Friendship Gala: 7-8:30 p.m. Friday, Hawai‘i Convention Center. Tickets are $100 per person, free for children under 5. Available at honolulufestival.com.