Tourism on the Big Island and Hawaii in general is down as high prices filter out overseas visitors.
According to data from the Hawaii Tourism Authority, 866,173 people visited the island during the first half of 2024, a decrease of 1.6% from both the first half of 2023 and the first half of 2019, the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the same time, visitor spending on the island during the same period was $1.63 billion, leaping up by 13.7% from 2023 and by 41.2% compared to 2019.
The same trends mostly bore out statewide, with the 4.7 million visitors this year to date down by 3.7% from the first six months of 2023, and down by 7.5% from the first half of 2019.
Spending statewide this year is actually down somewhat from 2023, dropping from $10.7 billion to $10.2 billion, but is still significantly higher than 2019, when visitors spent $8.8 million by the end of June.
HTA reported that the statewide total visitation rate for June represents a near total (92%) recovery compared to the prepandemic June 2019, while June 2024 spending has increased by more than 17% from June five years ago.
Meanwhile, Big Island hotel occupancy rates dropped by 2.4 percentage points in June compared to June 2023, and by 11.4 percentage points compared to June 2019. This year to-date, the occupancy rate for Big Island hotels was 67.8%, down 3.3% from the first six months of last year, and down 9.2% from the same months of 2019.
The average daily rate for a Big Island hotel room was $423.77 in June, up 4.3% from June 2023, but up a staggering 70.2% from June 2019. That increase in rates since 2019 was the largest of any island this month.
Vacation rental performance rates on the island show a similar story for June: slight declines in occupancy from 2023 (4%), larger declines compared to 2019 (22%), while the average daily rate has ballooned to $257.57, up 5% from June 2023 and up 59% from June 2019.
“It’s been a strange, unpredictable year,” said Jason Cohn, president of Big Island tour group company Hawaii Forest and Trail. “Some months have been fantastic, while others have been much slower than we expected. … This summer has been a bit lackluster, though.”
Cohn said there have been various factors for why the market has cooled, but added the soaring prices for lodging and plane tickets have caused the biggest impacts.
“Activity providers have found that, after paying for the hotel, visitors don’t have the extra spending power,” Cohn said. “Concierges have said they’re getting a lot of questions about free activities. People are blowing their budget on the flight and the hotel.”
Cohn estimated that his business’ customer rate has been “about flat” compared to previous years — “but the cost of business has gone up,” he added.
Cohn also said he and other tour groups are bracing for a slow autumn. He said the lead-up to a U.S. presidential election is typically a fallow period for travel.
But Cohn went on to say that there are too many unpredictable variables to make any kind of reasonable prediction about when the market will right itself. While he guessed that, after the election, demand for travel might start to creep back up around the holiday season, the industry is too volatile to tell.
Scott Pauli, executive director of the Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau, said in an email that although the market will be slow for the remainder of the year, it is still trending better than 2023.
“While we do see a trend up in visitor spending, we also see a slight decline in the number of visitors to the island of Hawaii for the rest of this year,” Pauli wrote. “We have been hearing from our visitor industry partners that the same softness will continue for the rest of the year as well. While this year looks like it will continue to be soft, we need to look at the entire picture in terms of recovery. Compared to 2023, Hawaii Island is headed in the right direction.”
Pauli added that the island’s “diversity of landscapes and experiences” will continue to be an evergreen attraction for visitors and that the visitors bureau is working with partners on new campaigns to continue to appeal to overseas guests.
“Looking towards international markets, Japan is important to Hawaii Island,” Pauli wrote. “We are working to bring visitors from Japan back, despite barriers such as the high exchange rates. In Japan, the current campaign is ‘Beautiful Hawaii’ and ‘Yappari Hawaii (It’s Gotta Be Hawaii).’ Both feature a more direct invitation to visitors from Japan to return to and rediscover Hawaii.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.