Dec. 31–Hawaii’s tourism industry is on track to reach another record number of visitors and spending in 2014, for the third year in a row.
The visitor industry continues to pace slightly ahead of last year, with arrivals through November up 0.9 percent at 7.5 million, according to preliminary statistics released Tuesday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Total expenditures grew 2.3 percent to $13.3 billion in the first 11 months of 2014, boosted by 2 percent higher daily spending to $195 from $192.
The growth in spending this year has added $293 million to the state’s economy compared to last year at this time.
“The exposure with the president here, the Sony Open (golf tournament) and things that bring attention to Hawaii has … helped tourism,” said Ken Ikeda, director of operations for Honolulu-based Panda Travel, which has seen a slight increase in business from a year ago. “And of course the terrible weather storms they’ve been having on the mainland in the Midwest through the East Coast, that has generated a lot of interest in the warmer destinations with Hawaii being one of the top choices.”
Last year there were 8.1 million visitors who spent $14.4 billion in the islands. In 2012, the first year arrivals reached 8 million, expenditures totaled $14.3 billion.
For the month of November, there were 637,664 visitors to the islands, up 2.2 percent, while average daily spending rose to $194 from $192 per person in the year-earlier period.
Total expenditures last month increased 3.4 percent to $1.1 billion compared to November 2013, HTA said.
Despite the positive numbers, hotels are just getting in line with pricing to match increased operating costs, said David Carey, president and chief executive officer of Outrigger Enterprises Group.
“We always forget that inflation is a factor. Costs have certainly increased rapidly over the past three years — labor costs, medical costs and up until very recently, energy costs,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s been three years in a row of positive increase in business and that’s good. The industry is getting better at getting pricing that’s more in line with the quality of products here in Hawaii.”
November arrivals by air for the state’s core U.S. West market rose 4.3 percent to 267,696, while spending grew 7.4 percent to $398.9 million. Visitors from the eastern U.S., Hawaii’s second largest visitor market, fell 0.2 percent to 108,872, though spending jumped 16.8 percent to $237 million.
Visitors from Japan, the state’s largest international market, increased 1.8 percent to 122,191, but expenditures dropped 4.7 percent to $187.1 million. Japanese visitors have been hurt by the falling value of the yen, which makes all dollar purchases more expensive.
Likewise, there were 0.2 percent more visitors from Canada to 45,604, but spending from this market plunged 12.3 percent to $92 million. All other markets, which include emerging Asian nations, recorded 8.8 percent more visitors to 84,686 and a 0.5 percent drop in spending to $183.6 million.
“Arrivals and spending from our developing international markets also continue to grow as we work toward diversifying our tourism profile and increasing first-time arrivals to the Hawaiian islands,” Ronald Williams, HTA’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “This has helped to balance our core markets like Japan, where economic uncertainty has led to slight declines in visitor arrivals and decreases in length of stay, which are affecting total expenditures and may hinder us from reaching year-end targets for this market.”
Outrigger’s Carey is expecting the positive trend to continue in 2015, though growth in the industry can be easily deterred by natural disasters, international conflicts or acts of terrorism.
“The problem with the leisure business is we’re always dependent upon (world) events,” Carey added. “You really want to make money when you can because we’re vulnerable in the events we don’t control. It always spooks people about flying when planes go missing or if there’s any unplanned disease outbreak in our core markets.”
