Tourism continues Visitor arrivals for the month of November showed some improvement over the previous month but were still off significantly from a year ago.
to fall
A large jump in cruise ship arrivals
presents the lone bright spot
in a dour visitor pictureStar-Bulletin staff
There were 388,561 visitor arrivals in the isles last month, a 27.2 percent drop from the 533,497 who visited in November 2000, according to figures released yesterday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
The 27.2 percent drop was slightly better than that of October, which showed a 30.3 percent decline in visitors compared to a year ago.
As the number of tourists to Hawaii since Sept. 11 has foundered, the sharpest decrease has been in the number of Japanese tourists to the Isles. Despite increased marketing efforts, the numbers have not begun to rebound.
Last month, visitor arrivals from Japan numbered 58,549, down 59 percent from 142,806 during November last year. The drop is worse than in October, when Japanese arrivals were down 54 percent.
The number of visitors from the mainland also declined during the month, down 11.8 from a year ago percent to 297,446. However, the decline is better than October's 19.4 percent drop from a year earlier.
One bright spot among the tourism figures was the number of visitors who arrived to board cruise ships, despite the absence of two Hawaii home-ported cruise ships, the SS Independence and ms Patriot that ceased operations in October, the department said.
Four foreign-flagged vessels that made stops on Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island during the month attracted a total of 14,498 passengers, up 87.7 percent from the 5,122 cruise ship passengers in November last year, the department said.