Another record visitor count
Another record visitor count
August set another record for domestic visitor arrivals in the state, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
For the year 2004, the visitor headcount has been setting new records in nearly every month, by the DBEDT’s counts, which is now beginning to squeeze isle visitor accommodations.
After months and months of upbeat business, Lani Correa, the executive director of the Maui Hotel Association, says that “staffing for some properties has been very challenging, especially with our unemployment rate very low.”
People sometimes ask her for help finding rooms, and even with her connections, she says, often it’s a matter of “three nights here, two there,” because hotels are running so full.
Maui welcomed a total of 217,334 visitors in August, which was 0.4 percent below the total of August 2003.
Domestic arrivals were down even more, by 1.5 percent to 189,801, but international arrivals were up 7.8 percent to 27,633.
Maui island ran about even with the year before – which also was very busy – but Molokai and Lanai continue to report big drops in traffic. The smaller islands are being affected by the overall difficulties of interisland air travel.
For example, Japanese group tours are finding it difficult to include the small islands because they may need several dozen seats on one flight, and air routes don’t often provide that kind of excess capacity. As a result, arrivals at the Friendly and Pineapple islands are down a quarter for the year.
By contrast, Maui island’s arrivals are up 1.2 percent overall to more than 1.5 million for the first eight months, the DBEDT monthly report said. That’s the smallest percentage increase in the state, but only because Maui was ahead for the past two years.
Those other counties are rapidly catching up, especially Oahu, which has welcomed just under 3 million visitors so far.
That re-establishes one of the fundamental ratios of island tourism: Oahu outdraws Maui by two to one, and Maui equals Hawaii and Kauai combined.
The latter relationship holds true so far this year. Maui’s 1.5 million is almost exactly equal to the 1.55 million count on the other two Neighbor Island counties this year.
In August, the entire state received 459,561 domestic visitors, an all-time record for the month; and 645,543 total visitors. The total was a 2.9 percent gain over August 2003. However, total visitor-days dropped by 2.1 percent. This may have been partly a result of strengthening Japanese traffic; Asian visitors don’t stay as long.
Hawaii County welcomed 119,607 tourists, up 3.8 percent; and Kauai 94,915, down 1.1 percent.
August set another record for domestic visitor arrivals in the state, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
For the year 2004, the visitor headcount has been setting new records in nearly every month, by the DBEDT’s counts, which is now beginning to squeeze isle visitor accommodations.
After months and months of upbeat business, Lani Correa, the executive director of the Maui Hotel Association, says that “staffing for some properties has been very challenging, especially with our unemployment rate very low.”
People sometimes ask her for help finding rooms, and even with her connections, she says, often it’s a matter of “three nights here, two there,” because hotels are running so full.
Maui welcomed a total of 217,334 visitors in August, which was 0.4 percent below the total of August 2003.
Domestic arrivals were down even more, by 1.5 percent to 189,801, but international arrivals were up 7.8 percent to 27,633.
Maui island ran about even with the year before – which also was very busy – but Molokai and Lanai continue to report big drops in traffic. The smaller islands are being affected by the overall difficulties of interisland air travel.
For example, Japanese group tours are finding it difficult to include the small islands because they may need several dozen seats on one flight, and air routes don’t often provide that kind of excess capacity. As a result, arrivals at the Friendly and Pineapple islands are down a quarter for the year.
By contrast, Maui island’s arrivals are up 1.2 percent overall to more than 1.5 million for the first eight months, the DBEDT monthly report said. That’s the smallest percentage increase in the state, but only because Maui was ahead for the past two years.
Those other counties are rapidly catching up, especially Oahu, which has welcomed just under 3 million visitors so far.
That re-establishes one of the fundamental ratios of island tourism: Oahu outdraws Maui by two to one, and Maui equals Hawaii and Kauai combined.
The latter relationship holds true so far this year. Maui’s 1.5 million is almost exactly equal to the 1.55 million count on the other two Neighbor Island counties this year.
In August, the entire state received 459,561 domestic visitors, an all-time record for the month; and 645,543 total visitors. The total was a 2.9 percent gain over August 2003. However, total visitor-days dropped by 2.1 percent. This may have been partly a result of strengthening Japanese traffic; Asian visitors don’t stay as long.
Hawaii County welcomed 119,607 tourists, up 3.8 percent; and Kauai 94,915, down 1.1 percent.
posted by DP at 8:04 PM
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