LIHUE — A significant drop in the number of visitors to the island of Kauai in the final month of summer weighed heavily on the money people spent while on holiday during the period.
Total visitor spending retreated to $211.4 million in September from $236.7 million in September 2023, a monthly report from the state of Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism (DBEDT) showed on Thursday, Oct. 31. That marked a decrease of 10.7 percent, as well as the second straight month spending was below the same period a year earlier.
At the same time, the number of visitors to the island sank 14.1 percent to 100,262 from 116,660. That marked the lowest total for any month this year.
Despite the turnaround in the amount of money visitors poured into the island economy during their Kauai experience, visitor spending remained on track to eclipse the record of $2.76 billion set in 2023.
For the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, visitor spending was $2.18 billion, compared with $2.06 billion in the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, 2023. That marked an increase of 5.8 percent.
Across the island chain, visitor spending was down on Oahu and Hawaii Island, but miles higher on Maui where the economy continues to recover from the devastating wildfires on Aug. 8, 2023.
Total visitor spending on Oahu was $634.1 million in September, compared with $682.9 million in September 2023 for a decrease of 7.2 percent. There were 432,908 visitors to Oahu in September, which was down 1.3 percent from 438,743 in September 2023.
Total visitor spending on Maui was $364.6 million in September, compared with $203.9 million in September 2023 for a gain of 78.8 percent. At the same time, the number of visitors was up 77.3 percent to 164,932 from 93,027.
Total visitor spending on Hawaii Island was $222.0 million in September, compared with $252.1 million in September 2023 for a decrease of 12.0 percent. There were 115,510 visitors to Hawaii Island in September, which was off 11.5 percent from 130,464 in September 2023.
All told, visitor spending on Hawaii was up 4.6 percent in September, while the visitor count climbed 7.8 percent. The gains can be largely attributed to the U.S. market
“The leading contributor to the September 2024 tourism industry performance was the U.S. market with 519,987 visitors and registered as the second highest September visitor count on record (the highest September number occurred in 2022 with 566,189 visitors),” said DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka in a statement that accompanied the monthly report.
“The September 2024 U.S. visitor count was 18.4 percent higher than the same month in 2019. For the first nine months of 2024, the U.S. visitor count was 6.0 percent higher than the same period in 2019.”
The cruise ship industry also played a big role.
“The rebound of Hawaii’s cruise industry, which has surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels, was also a contributing factor in September’s performance. Nine out-of-state cruise ships brought 18,655 visitors to the islands in September 2024, more than double the number of visitors who came by cruise ships in September 2023 and 3.0 percent higher than September 2019,” Tokioka said.
“For the first nine months of 2024, there were 58 arrivals from out-of-state cruise ships that carried more than 106,000 visitors, a growth of 11.5 percent compared to year-to-date 2019.”
Looking ahead, the U.S. market is expected to have a major impact on tourism.
“Current airlift and travel agency bookings data indicate that the U.S. market will still be leading Hawaii’s tourism recovery in the future months. We expect that the foreign exchange rate will be more favorable to foreign visitors and the international market will improve in the near future,” Tokioka said.
“During the first nine months of 2024, the recovery of foreign visitors was at 63.6 percent, while Japanese visitor recovery was at 44.5 percent.”
