Despite a strong showing by mainland travelers, visitor arrivals to Hawaii in November were down nearly a quarter from the same month in 2019, according to data from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
About 613,000 visitors flew to Hawaii last month, most from the U.S. West and East coasts. In November 2019, 809,000 visitors arrived via air or cruise ship.
However, last month’s arrivals were more than 233% higher than the 184,000 visitors in November 2020 when COVID-19 restrictions discouraged travel to Hawaii and vaccines were not widely available.
The DBEDT data shows that for the first 11 months of 2021, Hawaii recorded just over 6 million visitor arrivals, well above the 2.5 million arrivals for the same period in 2020 but down from 9.4 million in 2019.
About 410,000 visitors came to Hawaii from the U.S. West last month, up about 9% from the 375,000 in 2019. There were 156,000 visitors from the U.S. East, up nearly 4% from the 150,000 in November 2019.
During the same month in 2020, Hawaii welcomed 137,000 visitors from the U.S. West and 40,000 from the East, according to the report.
While “looking forward with cautious optimism,” DBEDT Director Mike McCartney said in a statement that the state’s tourism industry is linked to how Hawaii and the world respond to the now-rampant omicron variant.
“The more our visitors and residents have the booster vaccination, the better opportunity we will all have to achieve economic momentum and prosperity,” he said.
International travelers, who face tighter travel restrictions, continue to trickle in compared with 2019. Only 2,600 visitors from Japan came to Hawaii in November — just 2% of the 132,000 or so visitors in November 2019. It’s no surprise then that spending by Japanese visitors dropped to $7 million last month from $189 million in 2019.
There were 22,000 visitors from Canada last month, up by more than 2,600% from the 802 arrivals in November 2020 but down from the roughly 51,000 Canadian visitors recorded in the same month in 2019. The Canadians spent $53 million here last month compared with $98 million in 2019.
Nearly 23,000 visitors from all other international markets — Asia, Europe, Latin America, Oceania, Guam, the Philippines and Pacific islands — arrived in November, compared with 4,900 in 2020 and 85,000 in 2019.
“Demand for travel to the Hawaiian Islands remains strong, as evidenced by these November numbers. While the situation with COVID continues to evolve globally, as more people continue to get vaccinated and boosted, we look forward to welcoming back our international visitors in 2022,” said Hawaii Tourism Authority President and CEO John De Fries in a statement.
Overall visitor spending in November, unsurprisingly, was down compared with 2019. Visitors spent $1.2 billion last month, a decline of about 12% from the more than $1.3 billion spent in November 2019, the DBEDT data shows. Comparative numbers for November 2020 were not available because of COVID-19 restrictions, DBEDT reported.
For the first 11 months of 2021, total visitor spending hit $11.3 billion, down from nearly $16 billion over the same period in 2019.
