The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism on Wednesday lowered its economic growth projections for this year on the expectation that tourism growth will slow, consumer inflation will rise, and policy uncertainty will increase at the national and international levels.
DBEDT adjusted its economic growth projections for 2025 to 1.7% in its first quarter 2025 Statistical and Economic Report, which is lower than the 2% that it previously projected in the prior quarter.
DBEDT said policy uncertainty with respect to the imposition of tariffs and potential trade wars has negatively affected the U.S. and global outlook for growth and inflation. The department said the Federal Reserve kept its fed funds rate target unchanged at its January meeting, and expectations of the future number and magnitude of cuts have been reduced in recent surveys.
DBEDT said over the next few years Hawaii’s economic resiliency will depend on the continued recovery of tourism as well as strong economic performance from the construction, real estate, health care and professional services industries.
DBEDT Director James Tokioka said in a statement, “While the domestic and international economic outlook has become more uncertain, we expect Hawaii’s economy to demonstrate resiliency. In addition to firm performance in the construction industry, we will continue to see growth in other industries including professional services and healthcare. We expect that the tourism industry will continue to recover in the next few years, even if at a slower pace than previously anticipated.”
Next year, the department is projecting that Hawaii’s economic growth will head back up to 2% followed by continued steady growth over the next couple of years culminating in a 1.8% economic growth projection for 2028. The labor market, however, is expected to remain stable, with low unemployment.
DBEDT reported that Hawaii’s unemployment rate was the 10th-lowest in the U.S. during 2024.The department expects the state unemployment rate to reach 2.9% in 2025 and improve to 2.7% in 2026, and 2.6% in 2027 and 2028.
The department said that personal income is expected to grow at 4.9% this year, dropping to 4.8% in 2026, 4.6% in 2027 and 4.5% in 2028. But the department noted that in January, Honolulu’s consumer inflation rate was at 4.1%, still higher than the U.S. consumer inflation rate at 3%. Honolulu consumer inflation in January was mainly in transportation (+6.8%), housing (+4.4%), and food and beverages (+4.4%).
Tokioka said, “With the income tax reform and the increase in the supply of affordable housing, we expect that living in our state will be more affordable and support our state’s workforce formation and retention.”
DBEDT noted that home sales and prices increased in 2024. Single-family home sales increased 14.3% from 2023 and sales of condominium homes increased 15.9%. The average sale price of single-family homes in 2024 was $1,093,445, an 8.1% increase from 2023. The average sale price for condominiums was $797,674, an average gain of 5.7%.
The department expects that Hawaii’s population will increase by 0.2% each year for 2025 and 2026 and at 0.3% each year for 2027 and 2028.
The department’s downward revisions to the forecast come as Hawaii’s economy is still rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic. Hawaii was the second-slowest state in terms of economic recovery from the COVID recession. The U.S. economy, in contrast, was 12.6% higher than the 2019 level during the same period.
A reason Hawaii’s COVID-19 pandemic-related slowdown has persisted longer is because of the state’s reliance on tourism-related sectors. DBEDT is now forecasting that visitor arrivals are projected to increase by 1% in 2025 and will grow at a stable pace of around 2% each year between 2026 and 2028. Full recovery in arrivals will not happen until 2028 when 10.4 million visitors will come to the state.
The department is projecting that visitor spending will reach $21.3 billion in 2025 and is expected to increase to $23.7 billion by 2028.
Jeffrey Eslinger, the Hawai‘i Visitors &Convention Bureau’s senior director for market insights and customer relationship management, said Wednesday during a spring update for the Hawai’i Tourism Authority that “people are likely to be more cautious with their travel budgets.”
“Looking at Hawaii specifically, because the U.S. remains our primary market, we are seeing softening in visitor numbers even though the January numbers for the U.S. market were quite strong. I think that was due to the way the holidays fell this year and a longer period,” Eslinger said. “We just need to be happy with what we had in January, but we have to be cautious and pay attention to the numbers as we move further into the year.”
DBEDT said airline schedules point to continued tourism challenges, with total air seats to the state expected to decrease 1.1% during the first 10 months of 2025. The decrease is mainly due to the decrease in flights from international locations, especially from Japan.
DBEDT Director of Tourism Research Jennifer Chun said Wednesday at the HTA’s spring update that, “If we look at air seats by country, we see some not-so-great trends. That change from 2025 versus 2019 is really drastic. In fact, the only areas that you see an increase is from the Philippines and then the U.S. market. When we look at 2025 versus 2024, we have more seats for Kiwis and the Philippines and then actually a decrease for the U.S.”
The department noted that total visitor arrivals recovered in 2024 to 93.3% of the level of 2019. While visitor arrivals from the U.S. were up 6.7% over 2019 levels, international visitor arrivals had only a 64.9% recovery.
DBEDT reported that the 2024 recovery rate of visitor arrivals from Japan was 45.7% of the 2019 level, and the recovery rate for visitor arrivals from Canada was at 80.2%.
Tourism results have been mixed across the islands. Visitor arrivals to Kauai in 2024 were flat compared to 2019. However, arrivals to Oahu in 2024 recovered to 94.5% of 2019 and arrivals to Hawaii island were at 98% of 2019.
The Aug. 8, 2023, devastating Maui wildfires further slowed Maui’s recovery in visitors, which in 2024 was only 76.6% of what it was in 2019. Maui’s dependence on tourism was reflected in its average weekly unemployment claims in 2024, which at 204 were 42% higher than in 2019. Statewide, however, DBEDT reported that the average number of weekly initial unemployment claims was 1,090 in 2024, lower than the weekly average experienced in 2019 at 1,200.
Eslinger said, “Maui continues to face significant challenges with continued softness in visitation and airlift. The impacts of wildfires are not just about physical damage, it’s also about the perception of safety and overall experience of visitors going to west Maui.”
Sluggish tourism contributed to the 2024 real GDP, the inflation-adjusted value of the goods and services produced in Hawaii, only recovering to 94.5% of 2019 for the accommodations, transportation, retail trade, recreation and food services sectors. DBEDT also reported that the wholesale trade, utilities, accommodation and food services, and other services sectors also were below the real GDP levels that were reached during the first three quarters of 2019.
Still, DBEDT noted that nontourism sectors have shown firm growth. Compared to real GDP in the last quarter of 2019, the information sector grew by 35.1%; the professional, scientific and technical services sector grew by 25%; the agricultural sector by 14.9%; and the health care and social assistance sector by 12.9%.
The department reported that statewide nonagriculture annual average payroll jobs still had 20,900 fewer jobs in 2024 than in 2019 with retail trade losing the most jobs at 6,900, followed by financial services at 3,200 and accommodations at 3,000.
However, DBEDT noted that there were 4,000 more construction annual average payroll jobs in 2024 than in 2019, and said it is forecasting that construction activity in 2025 will be stronger than previously expected.
The department said that more than 1,000 hotel units are either under construction or will start construction, with plans to open in 2025 and 2026. A significant number of government construction projects also are ongoing or in the pipeline.
The number of residential housing units authorized in 2024 increased by 78.1% as compared with 2023, and DBEDT said that increase was the highest in the past 17 years.
