Foreign tourism
traffic a mixed bag
here in ’97

Asia's turmoil and Canada's
currency hurt arrivals

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Despite its sluggish economy, Japan produced 2.09 million tourists for Hawaii last year, a 0.1 percent increase over 1996, according to a new country-by-country analysis by the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau.

Overall, Hawaii had a 0.7 percent increase in visitors last year for a total of 6,876,140, out of which 3,149,600, or 46 percent, were from foreign countries.

Hawaii maintained a 12.5 percent share of the Japanese outbound travel market, which was itself mostly flat with an increase of only 0.6 percent in the number of people taking trips from Japan.

Hawaii's share of the Japanese market last year was almost the same as it was in 1996, but remains down substantially from 10 years earlier when Hawaii attracted 17 percent of all Japanese traveling overseas.

And some foreign countries that Hawaii had high hopes for showed declines in travel to Hawaii, resulting in an almost flat year despite a 2.3 percent increase in travel from the mainland.

The weakness of the Canadian dollar caused a 6.2 percent decline in arrivals from that country, to 327,200 people.

The financial turmoil in Asia, which made the dollar more expensive in Asian currencies, resulted in other declines. Korea produced 116,740 tourists, a decline of 4.3 percent in Hawaii arrivals from that country. Arrivals from Taiwan were down 21.3 percent for a total of 60,880.

Arrivals from Hong Kong were down 19 percent at 19,430, but Indonesia, where internal strife had yet to reach boiling point, produced 20,410 travelers to Hawaii in 1997, up 6.7 percent.

"The Asia region as a whole posted a 0.8 percent decrease, as Hawaii's top source markets in the region all posted flat or weak performances," the HVCB said.

Europe was a mixed bag. A total of 76,090 tourists came to the islands from last year from Germany, but that was a decline of 11.8 percent, the HVCB said.

Arrivals from the United Kingdom, however, increased 7.3 percent to 82,180.

In the lands to the south, a 12.2 percent decline in arrivals from Australia, to 74,740, countered a 12.1 percent increase in the number of travelers from New Zealand, which sent 36,950 to Hawaii.

The HVCB does its country-by-country analysis once a year to supplement the monthly reports on arrivals.