Domestic arrivals
on uptick

Visitors were down 5.7 percent
for the week of Thanksgiving,
better than usual since Sept. 11

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By Lyn Danninger
ldanninger@starbulletin.com

Hawaii's domestic visitor arrivals continue to show improvement and were down by a relatively modest 5.7 percent for Thanksgiving week, Bank of Hawaii economist Paul Brewbaker told the Maui Chamber of Commerce yesterday.

"We forecasted that things would be on a recovery path, albeit gradual," he said. "That's pretty much true for the domestic arrivals."

But the news is not as good for international arrivals, which were still down by more than 50 percent during the week of Thanksgiving, according to recent unofficial passenger count information tallied by the state's Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, he said.

So far this month, domestic arrivals are down 16 percent, to 311,102, according to the department's latest figures. International arrivals are down 56 percent in November, to 72,791 through Tuesday.

While the news looks better for visitor arrivals to the Neighbor Islands from the mainland -- up 11 percent from last year -- Brewbaker cautioned that the increase can be attributed to more flights going directly to the neighbor islands. A year ago, those flights would have landed in Honolulu, and passengers counted here.

Hotel occupancy on the Neighbor Islands is still down by 10 to 15 percentage points, Brewbaker said.

"Neighbor Island passenger counts should be about 20 percent higher, not 11 percent higher, because of re-deployment of planes," he said. "That's how you reconcile the apparent contradiction."

Still, there is no question that Neighbor Islands are the leaders in terms of tourism recovery, he said.

"My basic message with respect to Hawaii's economic forecast is that we are on track and a little ahead of pace with domestic arrivals. But we do need to be concerned where the numbers are falling short."

Brewbaker said one bright spot for Hawaii is the relatively robust state of California's economy.

In spite of the Sept. 11 attacks and the collapse of the technology bubble, the number of California visitors to Hawaii from the beginning of the year through October was higher than in 2000.