Total tourist arrivals were down 4.8 percent compared with January 1996, the HVCB says. The drop comes from an 8 percent dip in Asia-Pacific arrivals and a 2.6 percent slip in westbound arrivals from the U.S. mainland, Canada and Europe.
"As anticipated, our worst fears were realized in January when both key markets - the mainland and Japan - slumped at the same time," said Roberta Rinker-Ludloff, HVCB vice president for marketing.
She said tourism promoters have known for a long time that the mainland wasn't doing well. "But the dramatic drop-off in arrivals from Japan is a wake-up call we can't afford to ignore," she said.
The HVCB is hoping for $10 million in emergency marketing money from public funds, sought from the Legislature at the request of Gov. Ben Cayetano. Today's negative figures come as that measure, and a broader HVCB budget item requesting more than $50 million a year in public funding for the next two years, are being considered by lawmakers.
Legislators say they understand the need for more tourism money but they can't see where it would come from, given the state budget shortfall and many demands for public funding.
Rinker-Ludloff said Japan has been the sole driving force that kept Hawaii's total tourist arrival figures increasing since 1992. Recent talks with Japanese travel executives led the HVCB to project a flat year for total Hawaii tourism this year because the usual Japanese increase is not taking shape.
David Carey, president of Outrigger Hotels & Resorts, said it is no longer fair to blame the economy for the dip in Hawaii tourism.
"There are some (West Coast-Hawaii round-trip) seats for $198 on some of the charters and some of the scheduled airlines and there are empty seats," Carey said. That means price is not the problem, lack of promotion is, he said.
"We have a great product that people have forgotten about because of the promotional noise from our competitors," said Carey, who earlier this week became president of the Waikiki/Oahu Visitors Association, the HVCB chapter for Oahu.
"The trends are scary and everyone should be seriously concerned," Carey said.
One of the figures that tourist industry executives consider significant is the average daily tourist census, which tallies the average number of visitors in the state on any given day. Fewer people means less spending, they say.
Because it has had a hard time accurately assessing Japanese spending, the HVCB can't be precise but the industry estimates that tourists spend an average of at least $150 a day after arriving in Hawaii.
Last month the daily census slipped 7.9 percent to 173,380, from 188,320 in January 1996. That drop of nearly 15,000 would amount, by that spending estimate, to a loss of $2.25 million a day in tourist spending. But tourism executives say the loss in daily spending is likely to be much more than that.
Hawaii had 545,300 tourist arrivals in January, down from 572,890 in January 1996. Westbound arrivals totaled 328,270, down from 337,100.
Eastbound arrivals, mostly Japanese but also including travelers from other Asia-Pacific nations, totaled 217,030 last month, down from 235,790 in January 1996.
The average length of stay for all tourists was 9.86 days in January, down 3.3 percent from 10.19 days a year earlier, the HVCB said.
For eastbound visitors, the average length of stay last month was 5.6 days, down 14.2 percent from 6.53 days in January 1996, while the average stay for westbound visitors was 12.67 days, off 0.6 percent from 12.75 days.