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Visitors keep
flocking to isles
Arrivals were up 8% more
By Russ Lynch
than the previous May
Star-BulletinHawaii's tourism industry continued its recovery last month with more visitor arrivals than in any previous May.
Substantial increases from newer mainland markets east of the Rockies indicate a strong boost to the state's economy, because those travelers are often first-time visitors to Hawaii who stay a little longer and spend a little more than the frequent visitors from the West Coast.
"There's very, very fast growth out of the Northeast, the Southeast, Texas and the Ohio Valley," said Ron Letterman, president and chief executive of San Jose, Calif.-based Classic Custom Vacations.
Japanese travel to Hawaii also was up strongly, according to monthly figures released yesterday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.
The total number of visitors arriving in the islands last month was 554,641, up 8 percent from 513,608 in May 1999.
An increase of 0.8 percent in the average length of stay -- to 8.37 days vs. 8.31 in May 1999 -- pushed visitor days up 8.8 percent to 4.64 million last month, from 4.27 million in the year-earlier month. The visitor days figure, which multiplies the average length of stay by the total visitor count, is consider a key indicator of the economic impact of tourism because it reflects how much opportunity tourists had to spend money in the islands.
Arrivals on domestic flights, mostly Americans but including some foreigners traveling through the mainland, were up 9.2 percent, for a May total of 365,157, vs. 334,407 a year earlier.
International arrivals totaled 189,484 last month, up 5.7 percent from 179,201. There were 140,728 Japanese visitors in May, 4.2 percent more than the 135,034 Japanese who arrived a year earlier.
The Japanese also increased their average length of stay by 1.1 percent to 5.55 days from a year-earlier 5.49 days. That resulted in a 5.3 percent year-over-year increase in Japanese visitor days to 781,150 from 741,670.
DBEDT said May was the fourth consecutive month of record arrivals, indicating that 2000 probably will be a record year. The arrivals total for the first five months of this year, 2.85 million, was up 4.4 percent from 2.73 million in the 1999 period.
"Hawaii is clearly enjoying a resurgence as a visitor destination," said Seiji Naya, DBEDT director. "The effect is going to be positive for all sectors of our economy."
Naya said June is likely to be a record-breaker too because of the Lions Clubs International convention that brought an estimated 20,000 delegates and perhaps 10,000 or more family members to the islands.
Letterman, who has headed Classic Custom Vacations since 1992, said there is a distinct trend toward tourists being willing to spend more to get a quality vacation in Hawaii.
"The high-end market is the fastest-growing. Every year we've been growing our sales (dollar volume) at twice the rate of our passenger count," he said. That means average spending is higher. "Our average booking to Hawaii now is $4,000," Letterman said.
He said summer travel to Hawaii will be strong but he expects "some softness" in the fourth quarter.
The DBEDT numbers show May tourist traffic from the Western states was up 8.7 percent. There were higher percentage increases from other mainland areas, although the visitor numbers from those were still much smaller than in the West.
Travel from New Jersey was up 10.7 percent from the previous and arrivals from southern states along the Atlantic Seaboard was up 10.1 percent.
All islands except Molokai showed increased tourist traffic.
