May arrivals
down 3.8%

But Mainland arrivals
exceeded last year

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

Hawaii's shift toward mainland tourism helped push May visitor arrivals within close reach of last year's levels, the state said today.

A total of 507,680 tourists came to the isles last month, a 3.8 percent decrease from 527,944 in the same month last year, according to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

Domestic visitor counts were slightly higher than last May, with 354,265 visitors compared with 351,889, an increase of 2,376 people. U.S. mainland visitors now account for nearly 70 percent of the overall market. International arrivals were down nearly 13 percent in May at 153,415 from 176,055.

"The Japanese visitor count is a clear trend toward recovery," said Seiji Naya, director of the department. In January, Japan arrivals were down almost 30 percent from year-ago levels.

Even though Hawaii's overall tourism was on par with last year, the news is not necessarily good. May 2001 arrivals were a drop of 4.8 percent from May 2000's record total of 554,641.

For the first five months of the year, total arrivals were down 10.7 percent to 2.5 million visitors from 2.8 million, a loss of about 300,000 people.

All major islands posted slight decreases in arrivals from last year. Oahu arrivals were down 4.1 percent, while Kauai was down 2.8 percent and the Big Island's arrivals dropped 10.3 percent. Maui was off 2.1 percent.