Visitor arrivals dip in January

By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer

The flow of tourists into Hawai'i dropped slightly last month as a decline in the number of Japanese visitors to the Islands pulled down total visitor counts.

While the number of Mainland visitors was up, Japanese visitor arrivals plummeted 9.4 percent. That led to a 1 percent drop in the total number of visitors to Hawai'i in January, the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism said yesterday.

"It's just disappointing," said Sharon Weiner, vice president of DFS Group, whose Hawai'i duty-free stores depend on Japanese customers for much of their business. "It was not as good as we had hoped it would be."

She said the problems leading to Japanese visitor arrivals falling to 110,662 last month from 122,120 in January 2003 could have been a shortage of hotel rooms or airline seats. Another possibility is the bird flu in Asia.

"We think that made some people a little bit apprehensive about traveling anywhere," Weiner said.

January was the first month that the state used new marketing agencies to promote Hawai'i to Asia, Europe and the Oceania region. The Hawai'i Visitors & Convention Bureau had promoted the Islands worldwide but now is responsible for marketing to only North America and corporate meetings and incentives clients.

The growing share of visitors from the Mainland helped to offset the decline in Japanese tourism.

Tourism from U.S. Eastern region had a 6.7 percent boost to 147,954 visitors in January. The largest market for Hawai'i, tourism from the U.S. Western region, had a smaller 0.8 percent increase to 170,110 visitors.

"The domestic market, as it has been over the last six months, has been our mainstay and those numbers are very positive," said Marsha Wienert, Gov. Linda Lingle's tourism liaison. An American Farm Bureau Federation convention that drew about 7,500 visitors to Hawai'i helped increase the number of business travelers, leading to an 11.6 percent more visitors headed to meetings, conventions and incentive trips last month compared with a year ago.

The report also showed the number of visitors planning to stay in a hotel while visiting Hawai'i fell 2.7 percent, while the number of people planning to stay in a time-share jumped 16.3 percent.

Visitors spent a total of $851 million in Hawai'i in January, including about $546 million from the U.S. Mainland, $160.5 million from Japan, $60.8 million from Canada and the remainder from elsewhere.

O'ahu brought in the most visitor spending at $399.4 million, followed by $234.4 million on Maui, $117.1 million on the Big Island, $93.7 million on Kaua'i, $4.1 million on Lana'i and $2.4 million on Moloka'i. Visitors to O'ahu spent an average of about $157 per day.

Japanese visitors spent the most per day at $254 per person on average, but they spent the least per trip at $1,451 because they tend to stay for fewer days. Eastern U.S. visitors spent the most per trip at $1,972 per person, at an average of $160 per day.

The state is revising its methodology for processing tourism industry figures and for the first time is reporting visitor expenditures data for the previous month with more details. Because of the new methodology, however, it will not report year-over-year comparisons for visitor expenditures and other data for several months.

Reach Kelly Yamanouchi at 535-2470, or kyamanouchi@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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