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Final tally
shines light
on tourism

The 1999 visitor count
was 6.74 million

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Final data on what happened to Hawaii's visitor industry in 1999 came out today, providing some new insights on the condition of the industry and in-depth confirmation of previously reported trends.

The figures from the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism confirm that Hawaii last year had more visitors who stayed longer than in 1998 but spent only about the same as they did in 1998, $10.3 billion.

The visitor-arrivals final total for last year, 6.74 million, was down a little from the 6.85 million preliminary figure issued in January. That was mostly because the figure has been revised to account more properly for island residents returning from trips, DBEDT said.

Still, the final arrivals figure was up 2.2 percent from 1998's 6.6 million and the final visitor days figure -- the number of tourists multiplied by their length of stay -- was up 4.5 percent at 60 million days last year from 57.4 million in 1998.

Many of the detailed findings in the 1999 Annual Visitor Research Report should help the private and government sectors in their planning, DBEDT said. Those figures include:

Attending a convention was the fastest-growing reason to visit the islands, with a growth of nearly 20 percent over the previous year.

Nearly half the visitors from the Eastern United States last year were first-timers compared to 25 percent of the Western U.S. tourists. Visitor industry officials say first-timers tend to spend more than repeaters.

The U.S.-East market replaced Japan as the second highest source of visitor expenditures, after the U.S.-West. Japanese individually spend more than others but there are fewer of them, about one-third of total visitor arrivals. Most of Hawaii's visitors come from the Western states and even though they spend less per person, their numbers make them the biggest geographic segment of total visitor spending.

There was a 16 percent rise in the number of Japanese coming to Hawaii for weddings or honeymoons in 1999 vs. 1998. Twenty percent of all the Japanese visitors to the islands last year were on marriage-related trips. However, total Japanese visitor days were down 9 percent last year.

Europeans are getting familiar with Hawaii and 44 percent of them had been to the islands at least once before their latest trip.

Australians and New Zealanders, although still relatively small in numbers, were good spenders when they did come, spending $194 per person per day and staying an average of 8.5 days.

Also new today is an updated 1999 Visitor Plant Inventory Report, showing roughly 72,000 hotel and resort condominium rooms available in 1999, down 0.5 percent from 1998. Several new projects launched this year should send that figure higher for 2000.

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1999 Annual Visitor Research Report
1999 Visitor Plant Inventory Report