Buying power Most of the publicized statistics about Hawaii retail spending concentrate on tourist trends, but local residents are a nearly equal force in retail shopping that should not be overlooked, according to a local marketing trends expert.
of kamaaina
often ignored
Hawaii residents spend
SARS, terror keep tourists home
almost as much on retail
each year as tourists do
By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com"Let's not forget the locals," Nanette Macapanpan, a senior associate in the real estate and hospitality group of consulting firm KPMG LLC, said yesterday.
In 2001, visitors spent $3.86 billion in Hawaii shops. In the same year, Hawaii residents spent $3.22 billion, Macapanpan told the spring seminar of the Hawaii chapter of the International Council of Shopping Centers.
"Locals' spending in total is comparable to visitor spending," she said. The 2001 estimated figure for Hawaii residents was a growth of 3 percent from $3.13 billion in 1999, while the visitor-spending total in 2001 was down 2.9 percent from $3.86 billion two years earlier.
Hawaii is small in the shopping-center scene, with 192 centers out of a national total of 46,438, but the 20.4 million square feet of shopping centers in the islands have combined annual sales approaching $6 billion, Macapanpan said.
Hawaii has higher sales per capita than the nation as a whole, with island centers writing up sales of $4,678 per shopper in 2002, compared with $4,538 per person nationally.
Looking at markets of a similar size, Hawaii fares well in sales per square foot but many tenants of island shopping centers pay twice the rent paid by tenants in equivalent areas on the mainland.
In 2001, Hawaii shopping centers had average sales of $279 per square foot. That was less than Maine, at $290, but higher than Delaware, $245; Rhode Island, $227; Idaho, $198; or West Virginia, $194. However, annual rent paid by tenants in Hawaii centers ranged from $24 a square foot to $36 a square foot while tenants in the comparable mainland centers paid $10 to $15 a square foot.
On the face if it, Hawaii looks like a better market than some, with a median household income in 2000 of $65,872, compared to the national median of $62,228, Macapanpan said. That is countered, however, by the fact that 38 percent of the annual spending by Hawaii consumers goes into housing. That factor and other local conditions leave the median Hawaii household with disposable income of $25,262 a year, slightly less than the U.S. average of $25,939 according to the 2000 Census, Macapanpan said.
KPMG