The island’s best June visitor arrival figure since 1991 was a pleasant surprise to the top Kaua’i tourism official. “It’s a better number than I thought we were going to get,” said Sue Kanoho, executive director of the Kaua’i Visitors
The island’s best June visitor arrival figure since 1991 was a pleasant surprise to the top Kaua’i tourism official.
“It’s a better number than I thought we were going to get,” said Sue Kanoho, executive director of the Kaua’i Visitors Bureau, regarding the 103,558 June Kaua’i arrival figure as released by the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT).
That number represents the island’s best June arrival figure since 1991, when 119,920 visitors came to the island. It also marked an increase of 4.5 percent compared to June 2000.
The 2001 June figure was powered in part by a 50 percent increase in the number of Japanese visitors (16,691 in June of this year, 11,131 in June 2000).
Kanoho warned earlier of the dangers of neglecting the Japanese market when that country’s economy was floundering and visitor numbers were down, and added last week that the efforts of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka and tourism industry leaders to cultivate that important market are paying off when the June figures are considered.
And the Japanese visitors still spend more per person per day on Kaua’i and in the state than any other single-country visitor group (nearly $215 a day by Hawai’i Tourism Authority targets, compared to around $170 a day for U.S. visitors).
Year-to-date Japanese visitors to Kaua’i are also up, 13.6 percent compared to 2000. The first six months this year, Kaua’i greeted 70,997 Japanese visitors, compared to 62,502 during the same period in 2000.
International visitors to Kaua’i in June totaled 19,691, an increase of 36.8 percent compared to June of last year. For the year-to-date, only international arrivals showed growth (101,430 visitors, up 7.3 percent over the first six months of 2000).
For the first six months of this year, 526,312 total arrivals were recorded on Kaua’i, off 1.5 percent compared to the same period last year.
June kicked off what Kanoho and others in the visitor industry on the island hope will be a robust summer, as fall and early winter advance bookings are lower than anticipated.
“The summer business hit strongly, and that’s a good thing,” she said. “The goal is to keep this up for summer, to get ahead of last year’s year-to-date totals, then hope for not too dull a fall,” said Kanoho.
Besides the Japanese arrival figures, Kanoho was also impressed with the U.S. east numbers, she said. U.S. east arrivals for June of this year were 36,399, up 1.3 percent compared to June 2000.
Numbers of U.S. east visitors to Kaua’i were up for the month among those visitors choosing to stay only on Kaua’i, but down for the first six months compared to the same period last year in both total U.S. east and Kaua’i-only U.S. east visitors.
The number of all visitors choosing to stay only on Kaua’i was off in June, and for the first half of this year, compared to the same periods in 2000.
The Kaua’i number of U.S. west visitors was off for the month and year, and down for Kaua’i-only U.S. west visitors in June as well. The Kaua’i-only figure for the first six months from U.S. west states (west of the Mississippi River) was up, though, 0.8 percent, to 116,315 compared to 115,389 recorded during the first six months last year.
Total airline seats to Kaua’i were up for June and the first six months of this year compared to the same period last year, with both scheduled and charter seats increasing in numbers.
In June of this year, 599,194 visitors came to Hawai’i.
Statewide, 3,409,050 visitors came to the islands for the first six months this year, down 1.5 percent from 2000’s best-ever totals but completely offset by a 1.5 percent increase in length of stay (nine days this year compared to 8.87 days in the same period in 2000).
“The fact that we have been able to maintain the overall performance of last year, despite the struggling economic profiles in our major tourism markets, highlights the expertise and hard work of the professionals we have operating and marketing tourism here in Hawai’i,” said DBEDT Director Dr. Seiji Naya.
“June’s arrival data conform with the continuing softening trend. We are, therefore, fortunate to see the strong first-half growth in California, our primary domestic market, in the face of a slow mainland economy,” Naya continued.
“We are also pleased with the exceptional first-half growth in student numbers, especially from the Asia-Pacific where we have focused our educational tourism efforts,” he said.
Business Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
