Strong August visitor
count overshadowed

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By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com

Hawaii's tourism industry had a strong August, making this summer a good one and leaving Hawaii just slightly behind last year in the year-to-date statistics.

The good news reported by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism yesterday doesn't mean as much as it might have, however, because of the sharp travel decline this month in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Total visitor arrivals in August were up 2.4 percent from August 2000 and a longer average length of stay -- 8.87 days compared with 8.66 days a year earlier -- pushed up visitor days by 4.9 percent.

Arrivals through the first eight months of the year totaled just under 4.7 million, down 0.1 percent from 4.75 million in the equivalent period of last year.

"The exceptionally good performance of August will unfortunately be overshadowed by the negative economic impact relating to the tragedies of Sept. 11," said Seiji Naya, DBEDT director. "Because of the strong August, we did better this year when compared to 2000 during our key summer season from June through August."