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Visitors Tourists poured into Hawaii in January, mainly from the mainland, but Japanese visitor arrivals increased too, according to state government figures issued today.
poured into isles
in January
7.4 percent more tourists came
here compared to January
of last year, figures showBy Russ Lynch
Star-BulletinThe arrivals numbers supported the findings of last week's hotel occupancy report that January was a strong month for Hawaii's biggest industry.
A total of 554,710 travelers came to the islands in January, up 7.4 percent from 516,344 in January 2000. Some of the increase was due to people staying home through the Christmas and New Year's period the previous year because of fears over the much-hyped Y2K computer bug that never materialized.
Arrivals from U.S. points last month set a 10-year record at 334,497, up 7 percent from 312,574 in January 2000. Domestic arrivals stayed a little longer too, an average of 12.32 days compared with 12.3 days in the year-earlier month. International arrivals were up 8.1 percent, a total of 220,213 vs. 203,770 in January 2000. Japanese tourists, who make up about 67 percent of total international visitors to the islands, were up 6.3 percent for a total of 149,892, from 141,024 in January 2000.
"It's good to see visitors coming back in force after the Y2K concerns of last January," said Seiji Naya, director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism, which prepares the monthly figures.
"The growth is largely due to the continued strength of the U.S. market. We are also pleased to see Japanese visitor arrivals continuing to increase," Naya said.
Maui's boom continued, with a 15 percent increase over the previous January. Due to the increased number of direct mainland-Maui flights, the number of Hawaii travelers who chose to visit only Maui rose dramatically -- a 22.7 percent rise from the previous January.
A total of 176,290 tourists visited Maui in January, up from 153,273 in the year-earlier month, and 83,936 of this January's arrivals stayed on Maui only, up from a Maui-only level of 68,409 in the previous January.
The Big Island had a 1.5 percent rise in total arrivals at 104,516, from 102,989 in January 2000. Kauai arrivals in January totaled 77,189, down 0.4 percent from 77,481 in the year earlier.
Lanai and Molokai showed whopping increases but the sampling sizes on those islands are small, which can distort the picture. The DBEDT survey showed a 62.6 percent rise in January visitors to Molokai, to 7,397 from 4,549 last year, and a 60.1 percent rise on Lanai, to 8,295 from 5,181. Oahu had a 7.5 percent increase in January arrivals, to a total of 385,779 from 358,845 in January 2000.
Economists view visitor days, the number of visitors multiplied by the length of stay, as an important component in the tourism statistics because they measure opportunities to spend money and contribute to the economy. Total visitor days in January were 5.61 million, up 4 percent from 5.39 million in January 2000.
Cruise ships played a part in the year-over-year visitor increase. Eight foreign liners called at the islands in January, boosting cruise-ship visitors 200 percent to 10,607, from 3,536 in the previous January. The earlier report on hotel occupancy from the consulting firm PKF-Hawaii showed a five-year high for January of 78.1 percent.
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