NFL, conventions boost visitor count

By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i's tourism industry enjoyed a 6 percent increase in visitor arrivals in February, driven by travel to the NFL Pro Bowl and two major conventions in Honolulu.

The events brought in thousands of visitors from the Mainland. The figures show an 11.1 percent jump to 190,161 visitor arrivals from Hawai'i's largest market, the western states and provinces, compared with the same month a year ago.

Travel from eastern North America also rose 9.7 percent to 151,486 arrivals, according to the data released yesterday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

Healthy increases from those two markets more than offset a 3.8 percent drop to 115,855 in Japanese arrivals.

State tourism liaison Marsha Wienert said she was encouraged by the strong performance from the domestic market.

"California continues to be our largest single-state contributor of visitors," Wienert said, also noting that one of every five visitors last month was from California. "The domestic market is really holding its own and holding us up."

Mainland travel got boosts from the Pro Bowl attracting 22,000 visitors, the CISCO Partner Summit conference bringing about 3,000 attendees and the World Aquaculture Society Tri-Annual Meeting drawing about 2,300 attendees. The number of visitors coming to Hawai'i for meetings, conventions or incentive trips increased 12.3 percent in February.

Wienert also said the average number of visitors arriving each day from the Mainland was 12,600 in February, the highest for any February on record.

"We had a gangbuster February," Wienert said. In the tourism industry, "everybody was smiling on every island."

Marriott hotels in Hawai'i had occupancy levels in the high 80 to low 90 percent range, according to Stan Brown, Marriott's vice president in the Pacific islands. "It was a very good month," he said, and he expects Japanese travel to improve later this year.

Visitors spent a total of $822.2 million in Hawai'i in February, including $274.8 million spent by western-states visitors, $252.8 million spent by eastern-states visitors and $172.1 million spent by Japanese visitors.

Japanese continued to spend the most per person per day at an average of $263.60, though Canadians, who tend to stay longer, spent the most per trip at $1,751.90 on average.

O'ahu brought in nearly $400 million of that revenue, while Maui attracted $232.2 million in visitor expenditures.

Each of the other islands brought in less than $100 million in visitor expenditures.

Other facts in the report:

• Visitors staying on cruise ships fell 14.4 percent to 10,701 last month compared to February 2003.
• Total airline seats to Hawai'i increased 4.8 percent in February compared with the same month a year ago. That includes a 17.2 percent increase to 128,691 seats to Kahului, Maui, and a 1 percent drop to 526,758 seats to Honolulu.
• The number of seats on international flights to Hawai'i fell 9 percent, including a 17.2 percent drop from Japan and a 16.7 percent drop from Canada.

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