A record 8,282,680 visitors (+1.3%) spent $14.7bn in Hawaii last year, according to preliminary results, although 6.4bn were US domestic passengers.

 

According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) and in line with the same pattern for many years, ‘domestic arrivals’ from the US mainland dominated statistics, with arrivals by air from the US West recovering, up 1.4% to 3,256,628 visitors in the second half of 2014 – after 11 months of losses. Higher daily spending per person by this group of +2.7% to $161 saw these visitors some $5bn (+3.2%).

 

Meanwhile, growth from the US East saw arrivals up by +1.1% to 1,719,798 visitors and daily spending rise by 3.3% to $205 per person. This, in turn, led to a 4.1% rise in total visitor expenditures to $3.7bn in 2014.

 

The HTA also noted a shorter average length of stay (-2.3% to 5.80 days) amongst the 1,510,938 Japanese visitors who arrived (-0.5%) in 2014, contributing to a -2.9% fall in this nationality’s visitor expenditure of $2.4bn. [Despite pressure on the yen, this group remains very important to Hawaii’s tourism receipts].

 

By comparison, arrivals from Canada rose 1.3% to 523,534 visitors with expenditures totalling $1.1bn (-0.5%) in 2014. Average daily spending by these visitors ($160 per person) was also lower compared to 2013 ($164 per person).

 

 

 

CHINESE UP 29.1% AS KOREANS FALL BACK -4%

As a region, arrivals from Oceania were up by +5.9% to 376,704, with ‘Other Asia’ +8.5% to 363,528 and Europe +4.6% to 143,132, while arrivals from Latin America moved slightly ahead at +0.1% to 30,303 visitors. Combined expenditures by these visitors rose 5.3% to $2.6bn.

 

‘All Other Markets’ amounted to 1,148,710 visitors – an increase of 8.9% per cent from the previous year – accounting for 14.1% of total air visitors to Hawaii. Australian arrivals led these nationalities in terms of sheer numbers, with arrivals up 2.6% to 313,054, followed by New Zealanders (+26% to 63,650); Koreans (-4% to 170,024); China (+29.1% to 161,375); Taiwan -1.9% to 22,242).

 

 

[Strong growth from Chinese visitors remains encouraging, but Hawaii still has some way to go before it is able to build a critical mass of high spending Chinese visitors and like all other destinations, it now faces increasing competition from domestic tourist locations within China itself].

 

Meanwhile there were more visitors from the United Kingdom (+5.6% to 49,206); France (+10.4% to 21,890); Switzerland (+5.3% to 16,660); and Germany (+0.5% to 43,734).

 

A total of 30,303 visitors (+0.1%) also arrived in the islands from Latin America last year, with more Mexicans (+3.8% to 10,368) but fewer visitors from Brazil (-1.4% to 14,647) and Argentina (-2.5% to 5,288).

 

A total of 242,057 cruise visitors also visited Hawaii by ship or by air (to board cruise ships) in 2014, which was a decline of 15.8 per cent from the previous year.