Visits drop in first half of year

By Susan Hooper
Advertiser Staff Writer

The number of people visiting Hawai'i in the first half of the year slipped 1.5 percent compared with the first half of 2000, but it still marked the second-best first half on record, state researchers said yesterday.

But while the first-half numbers reflect a relative strong market, the number of visitors for the month of June dropped 3.4 percent from June 2000, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, which released the monthly and six-month tourism statistics yesterday.

And one local tourism official said he thinks the industry slowdown in the second half of the year will be greater than in the first half.

"I'm afraid we probably can expect something similar to what we saw in June in the months ahead," said Murray Towill, president of the Hawai'i Hotel Association. "I do believe it will be a greater change (than minus 1.5 percent) but I don't know how much."

Towill said, based on reservations received thus far, group and corporate travel business to the Islands is down for the second half of the year.

"I think people have seen a softening of the market both eastbound and westbound this year. And that is juxtaposed against the very strong year that we saw in calendar year 2000," Towill said. "You have to keep in perspective that 2000 was a very good year, so playing against that is a real challenge."

Although the number of visitors dropped slightly in the first half of this year, total visitor days were unchanged for the period, state researchers said. That is because average length of stay for the six-month period increased by 1.5 percent. Visitor days are calculated by multiplying the number of arrivals by the average length of stay.

Seiji Naya, director of the state agency, said the six-month figures show that Hawai'i held its own for the January through June period.

"The fact that we have been able to maintain the overall performance of last year, despite the struggling economic profiles in our major tourism markets, highlights the expertise and hard work of the professionals we have operating and marketing tourism here in Hawai'i," Naya said.

In the first six months of this year, 3,409,050 people visited Hawai'i, state researchers said. That compares with 3,460,354 visitors in the same period the year before. The number of domestic visitors was down about 1.2 percent in the first half of the year compared with the first half of the year before. The number of international visitors was down about 2.1 percent during the period.

But international visitor days were up 4.2 percent in the first half of the year, reflecting a 6.4 percent increase in international visitors' average length of stay. That compares with a 1.5 percent decline in domestic visitor days during the same period.

In June, the number of domestic visitors dropped by 3.8 percent from June 2000. The number of international visitors was down 2.4 percent last month compared with June 2000. Domestic visitor days dropped 4.5 percent in June, while international visitor days rose 3.9 percent, the state agency said.

The number of Japanese visitors dropped 3.9 percent in the first half of the year, to 849,748 visitors, as compared with the first half of 2000. The number of visitor days for Japanese tourists dropped by 0.4 percent in the first half of the year. In June, the number of Japanese visitors dropped by 1.5 percent from June 2000, while visitor days for Japanese tourists rose 4.3 percent.

In the first half of 2001, four islands showed declines in visitor arrivals from the year before: O'ahu (-0.8 percent), Kaua'i (-1.5 percent), Maui (-2.2 percent) and Hawai'i (-1.9 percent). Two islands reported visitor increases during the six-month period: Moloka'i (up 16.9 percent) and L?na'i (up 5.4 percent).

In June, three islands showed drops in the number of visitors from June 2000: O'ahu (-4.0 percent), Maui (-2.0 percent) and Moloka'i (-11.6 percent). Three islands reported more visitors last month than in June 2000: Kaua'i (up 4.5 percent), Lana'i (up 4.1 percent) and Hawai'i (up 0.9 percent).