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Best-ever April
for tourism
The visitor count was up
Maui banks on rosy economy By Russ Lynch
and they stayed longer,
spurring the state economy
Star-BulletinBoosted by a lively bounce-back in travel from Japan and a continuing surge in U.S. tourism, Hawaii's visitor industry had its best-ever April, a jump of 8.5 percent in visitor arrivals from April 1999.
All islands, except Molokai and Lanai, showed increases, and visitors were staying longer than they were last year, according to state figures issued today.
"This dramatic surge in visitors firmly sets us on the path to a record year," said Seiji Naya, director of the state's Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, which compiled the monthly report.
For the year through April, the visitor count is nearly 2.3 million, up 3.5 percent from 2.2 million for the same period last year.Along with the recently reported increases in hotel occupancy and room rates, the higher visitor numbers mean a strong boost for Hawaii's economy, experts say.
Visitor days -- the total visitor count multiplied by the average length of stay -- grew a healthy 11.3 percent from the April 1999 level, according to the latest report. For the industry, this figure is considered more critical than the overall visitor count because it better reflects how much opportunity tourists have to spend money in Hawaii.
The state also said April was the first month since November that the number of Japanese tourists increased from a year earlier.
What's more, the outlook for the Japanese market is getting better, said Takashi Kitamura, president and chief executive officer of JTB Hawaii Inc.
Hawaii's Japanese tourist business as a whole had a good month in April, said Kitamura, who heads the Hawaii arm of Japan's biggest travel agency, Japan Travel Bureau Inc.
Last year's April was poor, but this year's picked up a lot, thanks to the annual Golden Week holidays and an apparent improvement in Japan's economy, he said.
"Especially the group tours picked up compared to last April," Kitamura said. He said May has been a strong month, getting an extra boost from events such as the 100th anniversary of Okinawan immigration and the late May live broadcast from Hawaii of a popular annual Japanese TV show, the national amateur singing contest.
In mid-June, thousands of Japanese will be here for the convention of Lions Clubs International. At least 12,000 fans from Japan are expected at Aloha Stadium tomorrow for a concert by the popular Japanese surf band Tube. And the Pan-Pacific Festival Matsuri in Hawaii, which starts June 9, will bring Japanese participants and onlookers.
It's often the case that an increase in tourist numbers comes from lower prices through aggressive price competition, but that doesn't seem to be the case this time, said David Ramsour, a consultant on Hawaii's economy and a former Bank of Hawaii chief economist.
He said the rise in hotel occupancy and room rates for April indicates that the increase in visitor arrivals comes from factors other than price competition, which can increase traffic without lifting spending.
"We would assume that the response in (arrivals) numbers is the result of their domestic income experience and not Hawaii's price design. And if that is the case, and I assume it is, we are likely to see similar percentage increases" continuing, he said.
Commercial and retail revenues from the tourist industry, as well as tax revenues arising from them, should be strong through the summer, said Ramsour, who now works out of Houston as the president of the Texas Council on Economic Education but continues to monitor Hawaii's economic trends.
DBEDT's Naya said the tourism increase helped Hawaii's employment market, which saw a 2 percent gain in jobs during the first four months of this year. Statewide unemployment dropped to 4.2 percent in April, the first time it has been that low since 1992.
The booming mainland economy continued to provide the biggest boost for Hawaii tourism, particularly from the Western states. Traffic from the mainland, which provides about 59 percent of all of Hawaii's tourists, was up 10.1 percent year over year.
California alone produced 129,242 Hawaii visitors last month, up 22.7 percent from the 105,289 in April 1999. But DBEDT also reported an increase of 12.5 percent in traffic from east of the Rockies. That area represents newer markets for Hawaii, where travelers are more likely than West Coast travelers to be making their first trip to Hawaii.
The state's tourism numbers for last month include: Tourism flexed
its muscles in April
A total of 571,975 arrivals, 8.5 percent more than the April 1999 total of 527,235.
