Posted on: Friday, August 15, 2003

Most visitors to O'ahu spending more

By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer

Japanese visitors were the highest-spending tourists on O'ahu in the first half of the year, doling out an average of $236 per person daily, while tourists from Canada spent the least on the island, at about $105 a day.

Visitors from most markets surveyed spent more per person daily in the first half of the year than in the same period a year ago, including Europe ($132), the U.S. West ($132), Asia outside of Japan ($168) and Oceania ($138).

Visitors from Japan spent less on lodging but more on shopping, food and entertainment than they did last year. Meanwhile visitors from the U.S. West, another key market, are spending more on shopping, transportation and entertainment but less on food.

The only group to post a decline was visitors from the U.S. East region, who spent an average of $135 a day, down from $143 last year. They spent more on lodging but less on food, shopping, transportation and entertainment.

State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert said she was pleased to see an increase in daily spending by people from most of the major markets traveling to O'ahu.

Meanwhile, visitors to Maui during the first half of the year spent an average of $169 per person daily, Big Island visitors spent $136 per person, Moloka'i visitors spent $80 per person and Kaua'i visitors spent $138 per person.

The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, which released the figures, noted the O'ahu figures are not comparable to the Neighbor Island figures because the data is gathered differently.

Separately, the Hawai'i Tourism Authority reduced its target for total visitors and visitor spending this year. The HTA now expects a total of 6.5 million visitors to Hawai'i this year, including 1.4 million from Japan, and $10 billion in visitor spending, according to a draft report.

In January, the HTA said it expected 6.7 million visitors and $11.1 billion in spending, but that was before the war in Iraq and the SARS outbreak.