Japanese arrivals increase
By Michele Kayal
Advertiser Staff Writer
The number of Japanese visitors to Hawai'i rose last month for the first time since January, according to figures released yesterday, boosting a month that only slightly trailed the strong tourism performance of July 2000.
The total number of visitors to Hawai'i hit 643,452 last month, a decline of less than 2 percent compared to July 2000, figures released by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism showed.
Visitors to Hawai'i stayed slightly longer, however, and for the first seven months of this year, the number of visitor days — a measure of tourism strength that supposes one visitor staying one day — is almost dead-even with last year.
The total number of visitors to the state through July came in at 4.052 million, the second-best showing on record for that period.
2000 was the strongest in history for arrivals. Hawai'i welcomed a record 6.9 million visitors in 2000, pushing visitor days 3 percent above 1999.
Spending in 2000, however, fell short of a record, coming in at $10.9 billion.
Tourism officials have made visitor spending the benchmark of the visitor industry's health, although spending statistics are not released monthly.
About 3 percent more Japanese came to Hawai'i last month than in July 2000, totaling 157,190. They also stayed longer, pushing visitor days for the group up nearly 2 percent for the first seven months of the year.
Visitor arrivals from the Western part of the United States, which provides more than a third of all visitors to Hawai'i, were even with last July, at 251,488. U.S. visitors from the East were also even, at 167,076.
Canadians made a strong showing, increasing arrivals by 22 percent for the month to 14,773. So far this year, Canadian visitor numbers are up 4 percent, while visitor days for the group are up nearly 6 percent.
Roughly 84 percent of all July visitors were on vacation or a honeymoon, an increase of 6 percent in the honeymoon market, and about 2 percent in the other vacation market.
Meanwhile, corporate business travelers fell 28 percent from last July. Travel related to meetings, conventions and incentive programs is down 21 percent for the first seven months of the year compared to 2000, when that group kept hotels full.
