Tourism Declines on Hawaiʻi Island in Q1 of 2019

The Naniloa Hotel in Hilo, Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiʻi Island saw declines in both visitor spending and visitor arrivals during the first quarter of 2019, according to preliminary data released last week by the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority (HTA).

In total, visitor spending plummeted by -19.3% to $203 million while arrivals fell by -6.7% to 163,987.

During the month of March alone, visitor spending declined by -13.3% to $648.6 million and arrivals declined by -9.3% to 449,615.

Statewide, a total of 939,064 visitors came to Hawaiʻi in March, up 3.9% from the same month last year. Arrivals by air service increased by more than 4% to 927,246 while arrivals by cruise ships declined by more than 10%. Total visitor days increased by nearly 1%.

Visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent a total of $4.52 billion in the first quarter of 2019, a decrease of 2.4% compared to the first quarter of 2018, according HTA’s statistics.

Compared with the first quarter of 2018, the total visitor arrivals statewide in the first quarter of 2019 grew 2.6% to 2,542,269 visitors.

Oʻahu recorded increases in visitor spending of 4.6% to $2.01 billion and visitor arrivals rose by 3.7% to 1,481,543 in the first quarter compared to a year ago. Visitor spending decreased on Maui by -5.5% to $1.33 billion despite growth in visitor arrivals of almost 3%. Kauai saw visible declines in visitor spending, falling by -4.2% to $483.5 million; visitor arrivals dropped slightly by -1.4% to 333,961.

Graphic courtesy of HTA.

March 2019 Visitor Results

During the month of March, the total visitor spending statewide declined by -2.3% to $1.51 billion compared to March 2018. Average daily visitor spending statewide was down by -3.0% to $192 per person in March, year-over-year.

The average daily census of total visitors in the Hawaiian Islands on any given day in March was 253,498, an increase of 0.7 percent compared to March of last year.

On Oʻahu, visitor spending increased by 6.7% to $687.5 million and visitor arrivals rose by 4.3% to 532,801 in March, year-over-year. Visitor spending on Maui decreased by -3.3% to $442.9 million despite arrivals increasing by 5.4% to 273,846. Kauai also saw decreases in both visitor spending (-9.6% to $153.7 million) and visitor arrivals (-1.3% to 123,730).