New park fees kick in Wednesday

The new year brings new entrance fees at Haleakala National Park that will provide additional funding for infrastructure and maintenance needs, according to the National Park Service. Effective Wednesday, the entrance fees will be $30 per vehicle, $25 per motorcycle and $15 per pedestrian or bicyclist. The receipt allows unlimited reentry into either the Summit or Kipahulu district over a three-day period.

The annual Tri-Park Pass that allows visitors unlimited entry to the three fee-collecting national parks in Hawaii — Hawai‘i Volcanoes, Haleakala and Pu‘uhonua o Honaunau — also will increase, to $55 from $50.

Haleakala welcomed 1.04 million visitors last year. Approximately 80% of local entrance fees stay in the Maui park, with the remainder shared with non-fee-collecting national parks throughout the U.S.

Tourism numbers remain strong

Visitor spending on Maui rose 4.5% to $381 million in November, according to the latest data from the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Daily spending also was higher, with a 5.5% increase to $206 per person compared with the previous year.

Visitor arrivals for the month hit 233,631, a 3% jump from a year ago, but length of stay dipped almost 4% to 7.91 days. More arrivals from the U.S. West (up 9.1%) and East (3.8%) offset a drop in visitors from Japan (down 17.8%) and Canada (down 4.9%).

The average daily census in November was 61,617 visitors.

Through the first 11 months of the year, there were increases in both visitor spending (up 1.1% to $4.61 billion) and arrivals (up 5.1% to 2.8 million).

Kahului Airport led the state in percentage increase in trans-Pacific air seat capacity last month, rising 16.6% to 232,672. The other neighbor islands all saw decreases, and the Honolulu increase was 1.7%.

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