The number of visitors arriving in Hawaii last month — 608,420 — was virtually unchanged from last August, according to preliminary statistics released today by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

Officials said growth in visitors from the U.S. West (up 7.0 percent) made up for decreased arrivals from the U.S. East (down 2.6 percent), Japan (down 8.4 percent) and Canada (down 4.7 percent).
However, total visitor spending for August 2009 declined again due to lower average daily spending by these visitors ($153 per person, down from $176 per person in August 2008).
Total expenditure by air visitors in the month of August 2009 was $836.1 million, a decrease of $134.8 million or 13.9 percent compared to last August.
Total spending by air visitors for the first eight months of 2009 declined $1.2 billion or 15.7 percent from year-to-date 2008, to $6.6 billion.
Total visitor days for air and cruise visitors also decreased 1.2 percent, due to a shorter average length of stay (9 days in August 2009 versus 9.11 days in August 2008).
“After 17 months of declining arrivals, we are pleased to see that visitor arrivals overall have held steady for the past two months and that arrivals from our main market, U.S. West, have shown an increase for four consecutive months,” said Mike McCartney, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
“We believe that this is partly attributed to efforts by our marketing partner, the Hawaii Visitors and Conventions Bureau, including the recent blitzes to San Francisco and Los Angeles.”