Honolulu is among the top domestic leisure destinations for Thanksgiving, which travel membership organization AAA expects will set travel records this year.

AAA projects that 79.9 million travelers will head 50 miles or more from home over the Thanksgiving holiday travel period, which starts Tuesday and runs through Monday. The count of Thanksgiving travelers is up 1.7 million travelers, or 2.1%, from 2023, and more than 2 million, or 2.7%, above 2019.

“Thanksgiving is the busiest holiday for travel, and this year we’re expecting to set new records across the board, from driving to flying and cruising,” Stacey Barber, AAA Travel vice president, said in a statement. “Americans reconnect with family and friends over Thanks­giving, and travel is a big part of that. AAA continues to see travel demand soar post-­pandemic with our members looking for new adventures and memorable vacations.”

AAA expects domestic travelers to gravitate to warm-weather spots like Honolulu this year and that more travelers will fly. Four Florida cities, including Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, were on the list of hot spots, along with California cities San Francisco and Anaheim/Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, Atlanta and New York.

AAA anticipates that Thanksgiving travel by air will set a record, with 5.84 million people projected to fly domestically this holiday — 2% more than in 2023 and 11% more than in 2019.

Hawaii’s travel industry leaders say they are thankful that Thanksgiving travel to Hawaii is coming in stronger than in 2023, and bookings for festive season, which includes the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, have began to fill in from the earlier doldrums.

The 2024 Maui Invitational’s return to the historic Lahaina Civic Center is a slam dunk for Maui, which has struggled to recover from the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires, which killed at least 102 people and dampened tourism demand. In 2023, Oahu benefited when the basketball tournament was moved there. This year eight men’s college teams will play from Monday through Wednesday at the Lahaina Civic Center, which will host the tournament’s 40th anniversary.

However, the current level of holiday visitor bookings across the islands means that it’s going to take more than the turkey and mistletoe crowd to make the season bright.

Tom Calame, area general manager and managing director for Kyo-ya Hotels &Resorts Hawaii, said, “We are seeing some signs of moderate strengthening over this final quarter. Thanksgiving is trending a bit higher over last year, and we’re looking forward to closing out the year strong with bookings in various segments.”

Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance, said hotel occupancy for Thanksgiving is running about 70% on Oahu, and maybe a little less on the neighbor islands, save for Kaanapali, which is expected to get a boost from the Maui Invitational.

Gibson said since Thanksgiving is a valley period, “anything we get is the icing on the cake.”

But he expressed concern about Hawaii’s festive season, Dec. 22 to Jan. 3, which is still running behind 2023.

“Hotel occupancy during festive season is running about 80% to 82% across the horn, and normally we’re running about 87%,” he said. “We have seen bookings fill in some as the booking window shortens. But festive is very important because it’s the strongest 10-day period of the year and it’s the start to the new year. Hotels must do well the first quarter, or normally they’ll spend the rest of the year catching up.”

Gibson said kamaaina rates abound for Thanks­giving, and while he hasn’t seen hoteliers put out kama­aina offers for festive season yet, he said rates are competitive and far from historic highs.

Sean Dee, Outrigger Hospitality Group executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said in an email that Thanksgiving is not traditionally a peak period for Waikiki, but he’s hopeful “that with the recent unfavorable weather on the West Coast and significant offers in the market, we could see stronger-than-usual short-term demand for Oahu and the neighbor islands.”

“For example — we just launched Outrigger’s Annual Cyber Sale, offering up to 40% off of our Waikiki properties and up to 50% off or book-one-night, get-one-night free stays at Outrigger Kona Resort &Spa, Outrigger Ka‘anapali Beach Resort and Outrigger Kaua‘i Beach Resort &Spa. Available now through December 9th — these are our best deals of the year.”

Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort is running a cyber sale with up to 30% for bookings made through Dec. 4 for stays through Oct. 31. HHV also is offering a kamaaina package, which includes Thanksgiving weekend, for stays now through Dec. 19. A $204 nightly rate includes free parking for one car and no resort charge.

Gibson said a reason that there are Thanksgiving and nonholiday deals in December this year is that exchange rates make travel more expensive for travelers from Japan, Oceania, Canada and Europe to come to Hawaii, which has continued to slow the post-pandemic recovery of international travel to the isles. Gibson said the dollar’s strength against some international currencies also has made it more appealing for U.S. travelers to travel abroad.

To be sure, AAA booking data shows that air travelers are expected to pay 3% more for domestic Thanksgiving flights this year, while the number of flight bookings is similar to 2023. However, international flight bookings are up 23% compared to last Thanksgiving, in part because the cost to fly internationally is down 5%.

“There are strong rumors that Europe will continue to do really well with U.S. visitors,” Gibson said. “The Caribbean, Mexico and Florida also are spending a lot of money marketing to U.S. visitors. I was just in Mexico. Cancun was packed and we are not.”

Gibson said Hawaii needs to make a more consistent effort to market to its top visitor source markets, especially since competitors are significantly outspending the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority.

Dee agreed that continued tourism marketing support remains essential to stimulate recovery and sustain growth, especially since “overall, we are still seeing softness in the market, driven by the slow recovery from the devastating Maui fires and a stubborn but gradual rebound from our core international source markets, specifically Japan and Australia. However, this has been somewhat offset by encouraging growth from key U.S. mainland West Coast markets and strong airlift.”

Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said the Thanksgiving travel period is too short to draw many travelers from Hawaii’s top international tourism source market, Japan, and that the midweek holiday alignment of festive season also is unfavorable. However, he said the Honolulu Marathon and associated events, which take place Dec. 7-8, are expected to boost visitors from Japan as well as Hawaii’s core domestic market.

Vieira said more group business like the Maui Invitational and the Honolulu Marathon is needed to give Hawaii’s visitor industry a boost during off-peak times and to create compression that helps drive rates and visitor spending higher.

He said the Maui Invitational, which has sold out hotels on Maui over the Thanksgiving holiday period, is a great example of why group business is coveted and is a “win all the way around.”

“The Maui Invitational, which on average is a five- to six-day booking for visitors, is very positive for Maui tourism and for Hawaii tourism in general,” Vieira said. “It’s the best early-season college basketball tournament in the country, and a lot of fans and alumni are following it. The coverage produces great visuals of the island, especially during a time when it’s cold in many parts of the U.S.”

Joshua Hargrove, general manager of the The Westin Maui Resort &Spa, Ka‘anapali, which is one of the Maui Invitational’s host hotels, said occupancy for that week is running above the 90% range.

“It’s a nice bright spot,” Hargrove said. “But it’s all about the peaks and valleys this season. After the Maui Invitational, West Maui hotel occupancy drops back down into the 40%-and-50% range. It gets busy again from Dec. 26 through the beginning of January since The Sentry Tournament of Champions, the first PGA event of the year, is returning to the Plantation Course at Kapalua from Jan. 2 to 5.”

Hargrove said the normalcy that the returning Maui Invitational and The Sentry convey is helping West Maui hotels continue to transition back to primarily hosting leisure travelers after the end of the post-fire emergency hotel housing programs, and the drawdown of disaster workers.

“We were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to fill those rooms, but so far, room nights are running about 3% to 4% higher than January 2024, which means we are a little over flat, and that’s great,” he said. “If you remove all the FEMA and Red Cross-related room nights from the comparison, that means we are up 30% to 40% in visitors versus where we were at that time last year because we didn’t have a lot of availability.”

Hargrove said the return of transient visitors to West Maui comes in time for The Westin Maui Resort to showcase the completion of a $160 million renovation, which includes an overhaul of its main 552-room Kukahi Tower, the opening of Ulu Kitchen by Merriman and the debut of the Valley Alley Social Space, a 10,000-square-foot arcade and gaming experience that includes bowling.

“It’s a beautiful new product, really, across the board from rooms to public areas, restaurants and new venues. It’s just fabulous, so we are perfectly positioned as people come and start to rediscover Maui,” he said.