Despite an overall increase in the numbers, some parts of the industry reported increased business and others reported a decline."There was a sort of mixed reaction," said Barbara Okamoto, research director of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, which issued its July report today.
Despite an overall increase in the numbers, some parts of the industry reported increased business and others reported a decline.
There was an overall 2.9 percent increase in total arrivals in July. That included an apparent record in arrivals from Japan, although the specific details of foreign arrivals are not yet available.
The overall U.S. mainland market, which had lagged for several years because of the poor economy, also showed an increase, 3.5 percent more than July 1995.
However, nearly 50,000 of the westbound travelers this July chose to stay with friends and relatives, an increase of 11.9 percent from the year before, which disappointed some hotels with an average statewide occupancy dip last month.
One disappointed business was Hawaiian Airlines, now the second biggest volume carrier (behind United Airlines) between the mainland and Hawaii and pushing hard to regain its former position as the biggest interisland carrier.
One factor may be that the Japanese still don't flow to the neighbor islands in any kind of large numbers.
"July was a disaster in this town," Bruce Nobles, Hawaiian Airlines president and chief executive said Friday.
"Those businesses that rely on the Japanese-Asian traveler did O.K.," he said.
At Hawaiian, however, July was an exception to what happened earlier in the year, when every month started out looking slow but picked up to surpass last year.
"Our numbers were down and as best we can tell it's not anything we did," Nobles said in an interview.
"Something happened in July and we don't know what and we don't know what to do about it."
The Big Island apparently got a big boost from new direct Japan Airlines flights from Tokyo to Kona, showing a 26.2 percent in the island's overall eastbound arrivals. "The Kona flight definitely had an impact," Okamoto said.
The major neighbor islands, except for Maui, showed increases in overall arrivals, with Kauai also benefiting from higher Japanese business.
Maui was still far ahead of the other neighbor islands as the clear favorite among those who want to go somewhere beyond Oahu. However, Maui's 208,580 total for July was down 5.4 percent from 214,900 a year earlier.
One factor in the overall tourism picture was a continuing decline in the amount of time the average visitor spends in the islands. Eastbound travelers, led by the big-volume Japanese, cut their average stay by 2.9 percent to 6.01 days, from 6.19 days in the previous July.
The total average length of stay, including the mainlanders, was down 0.9 percent at 8.53 days, from 8.61 days a year earlier.
The result was an increase of 2 percent in the average number of tourists in Hawaii on any given day, smaller than the 2.9 percent increase in tourist arrivals. However, it meant nearly 3,500 more visitors on an average day for a daily census of 175,870 compared with 172,400 a year earlier.
"The pace of growth has slowed since the tremendous fourth quarter," said Paul Casey, HVCB president. "However, we're settling into a more moderate, but very steady, growth pattern."
He said year-to-date U.S. visitors are up 2.8 percent.