Visitor arrivals, spending down in April: Summer cooldown looms for tourism

Buckle up.

Visitors to Hawaii and their daily spending fell more sharply in April than they had in any month since the Aug. 8 Maui wildfires — an indication that even the peak summer season could prove soft.

Jeffrey Eslinger, senior director, market insights, for the Hawai‘i Visitors &Convention Bureau, said that overall, “summer is softer than it is typically.”

Eslinger said Oahu and Kauai will perform better this summer than the rest of the state, where dampening is apparent in the TravelClick report for the week ended May 19. The report compares total hotel room nights sold for the year ahead with what was on the books for the same time in 2023.

Eslinger said summer arrivals to Oahu will be bolstered by the 13th annual Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture, Thursday through June 16, and the 29th annual Rim of the Pacific military exercise, June 26-Aug. 2.

He said Oahu also will see some gains from the Hawai‘i Convention Center summer business, including the National Conference on Race &Ethnicity in Higher Education, Tuesday to Saturday, which has brought roughly 5,000 delegates to Hawaii, as well as several other citywide conferences that will bring another 5,000 delegates later in the summer.

However, Eslinger said West Maui is leading the summer doldrums with a 23.3% drop in bookings for June, a 21.3% drop for July and a 26.9% drop for August with losses widening until January. TravelClick statewide data shows a 1.8% decline in June, a 0.4% decrease in July and a 1.5% decrease in August.

Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said the summer malaise is carrying over into fall, which has even steeper drops.

TravelClick data shows statewide hotel bookings sliding 12.2% in September, 9.7% in October, 8.7% in November and 1.5% in December, which generally gets a boost from the festive season.

The softness that has been present in Hawaii’s visitor industry since the Maui wildfires deepened in the spring. On any given day in April, the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism reported, there were 207,827 visitors in the Hawaiian islands, down 12.2% from April 2023.

In April, DBEDT reported, arrivals to the state dropped 8.9% year over year to 753,551 visitors. Visitor arrivals in April were 88.7% of the pre-pandemic April 2019 level.

Visitor arrivals in April fell for Hawaii’s core U.S. West and U.S. East markets, as well as for Canada and the category called “all others,” which includes international markets outside of Japan and Canada. Arrivals rose from cruise ships and from Japan, which was Hawaii’s top international market before the pandemic.

Total visitor spending measured in nominal dollars in April was $1.5 billion, a drop of 12.6% compared with April 2023. However, total visitor spending was 14.3% higher than in April 2019, when nominal spending was about $1.3 billion.

Spending fell for the U.S. West, U.S. East and Canada and for the “all others” category.

Results were mixed across the islands and markets.

DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka said in a statement, “This is the first month that arrivals to Oahu decreased since March 2021.”

“The decrease was partially due to Easter falling on March 31, which pushed spring break travel into March instead of April,” Tokioka said. “Easter 2023 was on April 9, which affected the year-over-year performance.”

He added that the cruise market performed well in April, and visitors who came via out-of-state cruise ships registered the second-highest monthly arrivals on record. However, he added that “this market typically has less impact on the destination than visitors who travel by air as cruise travelers often participate in group tour activities versus exploring the islands individually and renting cars.”

Vieira said while the Easter shift contributed to the April slowdown in tourism, other factors also have contributed to sluggish summer and fall bookings. He said the strength of the U.S. dollar is causing international visitors to view Hawaii as too expensive, and Americans to eye foreign destinations where they have more buying power. Vieira said some travelers also continue to feel unwelcome following the Maui wildfires, which put more strain on the community and intensified pushback against tourism.

“There have been a fair amount of negative stories about Hawaii not wanting more visitors. That clearly isn’t the majority but it’s a vocal minority,” he said. “The only way we can counter that is with positive stories.”

Tom Mullen, HVCB interim president and CEO, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that its newest campaign aimed at U.S. travelers, “The People, the Place, the Hawaiian Islands,” began four weeks ago and will run through June.

“We are targeting the mindful traveler through national banner ads, emails, social and digital media,” he said. “We are seeing a response rate to the ads that we are running that is higher than the industry benchmark, so we know that we are targeting the right customer and getting a response.”

Mullen said he thinks rising Hawaii hotel rates, when combined with other fees and taxes, are dissuading some customers. For instance, Pleasant Holidays’ wholesale package pricing for the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort shows daily room rates of $495, which rise to $715 per night once resort fees, parking fees and taxes are added.

“That’s about a 40% increase,” Mullen said, adding that all-in nightly costs for hotel rooms in Jamaica are $436 and $411 in Mexico.

HVCB, which handles branding for Hawaii’s top U.S. visitor source market, was slated to provide an update on its campaign and other initiatives Thursday at the HTA board’s monthly meeting. However, the HTA board deferred the presentation, along with three other items on its public agenda, after spending about four hours in executive session with state Attorney General Anne Lopez and Deputy Attorney General John Cole.

After the HTA board emerged from its closed-door session, Cole reported publicly that there was a full discussion and the board consulted with its attorney on agenda item No. 8, regarding questions and issues related to the board’s powers and duties.

“No action was taken or required to be taken,” Cole said. “But it probably will lead to some things in the future.”

He said the HTA board had a long discussion on agenda item No. 9, a personnel matter, “with no action taken, including a vote by the board to take no action on the personnel matter that was discussed.”

For agenda item No. 10(b), Cole said the HTA board discussed the status of some issues pending with the state auditor for the HTA audit.

“There will be some action taken under the (Administrative &Audit Standing Committee) later. No action by the board was necessary,” he said.

The board approved a request from HTA board member Mike White, who chairs the Administrative &Audit Standing Committee, to have HTA staff draft a request for proposals to solicit a search firm to assist in its efforts to hire a new president and CEO.

Former HTA President and CEO John De Fries resigned in September. HTA Chief Administrative Officer Daniel Naho‘opi‘i serves as HTA’s interim president and CEO.