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Isle tourism
bit by Y2K bug
Visitors in January were
By Russ Lynch
off 3.7 percent and
stayed less time
Star-BulletinA decline in visitor arrivals and a shorter average length of stay produced a slump in Hawaii tourism in January but state officials called the drop an anomaly, caused mostly by Y2K worries.
Total visitor arrivals were down 3.7 percent compared with January 1999.
Besides the unrealized fears about computer malfunctions in the new millennium, Hawaii tourism industry officials say another factor in January's drop was their overestimation of crowds expected to come to Hawaii to see in the new century. Although hotels and tour packagers dropped prices and offered discounts late in the year, earlier word of high prices caused many travelers to postpone trips, the executives said.
"This is a one-time anomaly that should not be interpreted as a trend," stressed Seiji Naya, director of the Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.
The 516,344 tourists who came to the islands in January, a drop of nearly 20,000 from 536,036 in January 1999, stayed an average of 10.45 days, down 1.4 percent from the average of 10.59 days in the year-earlier month.
That resulted in a 5 percent drop in total visitor days, the number of visitors multiplied by the length of stay. The visitor days figure is considered important as a measure of the tourists' opportunity to spend money in Hawaii.
DBEDT, which took over the visitor statistics work a year ago from the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, started 2000 with a different way of of reporting the figures.
The department dropped its "westbound" and "eastbound" classifications, which traditionally measured North Americans and Europeans in one category and Japanese, Koreans and other Asia-Pacific residents in the other. Instead, DBEDT now reports "domestic" and "international" arrivals.
One difference is that Canadians, who make up a little over 1 percent of total arrivals and used to be in the westbound bracket, now join the Asians in the international group. DBEDT restated its 1999 figures to match the change.
For January, domestic arrivals, those from the continental United States, were down 2.3 percent from a year ago, while international arrivals were down 5.7 percent.
The department still reports Japanese arrivals separately and that category showed a marked slump, falling 6.2 percent in total visitors to a January count of 141,024, from 150,331 a year earlier. Japanese visitor days fell 12.1 percent because of a dip in the average length of stay to 5.65 days, from a year-earlier 6.03 days.
Each island showed a decline in overall arrivals, with Lanai and Molokai, where the tourist head count is relatively small, showing the biggest percentage drops.
Oahu arrivals were down 3.7 percent at 358,845 in January, from 372,721 a year earlier. Maui arrivals were down 7.9 percent, for a total of 153,273, compared with 166,412 in January 1999.
The Big Island had 102,989 visitors in January, down 0.8 percent from 103,774 a year earlier. Kauai's January visitor count of 77,481 was down 1.4 percent from 78,566. Lanai's total of 5,181 was down 23 percent from 6,727 in January 1999 and Molokai's total of 4,549 was down 22.4 percent from 5,863.
