“We will continue to work together with our marketing partners and the visitor industry to sustain the momentum we saw last year and achieve steady growth for another momentous year in 2012,” he said.
BY JAYMES SONG | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HONOLULU — Hawaii is seeing a solid recovery in tourism with increases in both arrivals and tourist spending.
State tourism officials said Monday that the islands welcomed 7,284,069 visitors last year, a 3.8 percent increase over 2010. Visitor spending in December reached a monthly record $1.3 billion, pushing the year’s total to $12.58 billion, just shy of the record of $12.62 billion set in 2007.
Mike McCartney, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, said 2011 was “an outstanding year for Hawaii’s tourism economy, with momentum and growth seen across the Hawaiian Islands.”
Despite last year’s deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which many feared would derail the slow but steady recovery in tourism, and global economic problems, Hawaii’s industry is showing resilience.
“Since 2009, we have seen consistent growth in our tourism economy that has helped us achieve these strong numbers,” McCartney said in a statement. “However, we recognize that we are still recovering from hard economic times, and businesses continue to face challenges.”
For December, there were 683,293 arrivals, an increase of 7.8 percent. The tourists spent on average $185 daily per person, up from $169 a year ago.
With the number of Americans increasing slightly, the biggest gains are coming from countries like China, Canada, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
As the number of direct flights and airlift has increased, arrivals from Australia surged 32.1 percent and there were a record 79,531 Chinese, which was an increase of 29.4 percent. The number of New Zealanders increased 28.3 percent while Korean visitors climbed 23.2 percent to 100,702. The number of Canadians grew 17.9 percent to 477,567.
The growth helped offset the decline in visits from Japan, which fell 5.1 percent to 1.18 million.
Every major island saw healthy growth. With a nearly 20 percent increase in Canadian tourists, Kauai’s arrivals rose 6.3 percent last year to 1 million, while its visitor spending surged 18.9 percent for the year.
The Garden Island was the only island with positive growth in visitor arrivals for every month of 2011.
Oahu had an increase of 2.9 percent in visitors and 18.7 percent in spending. Maui’s visitor count increased 4.1 percent while visitor spending went up 12.9 percent.
The Big Island saw modest increases of 2.8 percent in arrivals and 5.3 percent in visitor expenditures.
For December, there were 683,293 arrivals, an increase of 7.8 percent. The tourists spent on average $185 daily per person, up from $169 a year ago, resulting in the record month in visitor spending. The increase was the 20th straight month of year-over-year growth since May 2010.
McCartney gave a sunny forecast for the first quarter and rest of 2012.
“We will continue to work together with our marketing partners and the visitor industry to sustain the momentum we saw last year and achieve steady growth for another momentous year in 2012,” he said.