Categorized | Business

Visitor spending static; arrivals down 4.3%

MEDIA RELEASE

Visitors who came to Hawaii in February 2014 spent a total of $1.2 billion (-0.6%), similar to February 2013, according to preliminary statistics released today by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

Total arrivals declined (-4.3% to 646,759 visitors) compared to February 2013 but was partially offset by increased average daily spending (+2.6% to $203 per person) and a longer length of stay (+1.2% to 9.28 days).

Among U.S. West visitors who came by air in February 2014, fewer arrivals (-7.1% to 222,879 visitors) and lower daily visitor spending (-2.5% to $164 per person) resulted in an 8.6 percent reduction in visitor expenditures to $349.5 million.

U.S. West visitor expenditures and arrivals have shown year-over-year losses since August 2013.

While U.S. East arrivals of 143,688 visitors (-0.8%) were about the same as last February, higher daily spending (+7.6% to $216 per person) contributed to a 6.9 percent growth in U.S. East visitor expenditures to $332.9 million.

Arrivals from Japan (119,882 visitors) were comparable to February 2013 (+0.5%). However, decreased daily spending (-4.6% to $286 per person) led to a 5.2 percent drop in Japanese visitor expenditures to $195.7 million.

Growth in arrivals (+1.4% to 66,233 visitors) and a longer average length of stay (+3.3% to 13.05 days) offset lower daily spending (-2.4% to $162 per person) by Canadian visitors in February 2014. The net result was a 2.3 percent increase in Canadian visitor expenditures to $140 million.

Arrivals from All Other markets decreased 3.3 percent to 78,249 visitors. Combined expenditures from All Other visitors rose 7.6 percent to $195 million, boosted by higher daily spending. Arrivals by cruise ships fell 37.8 percent to 15,828 visitors in February 2014.

There were fewer visitors to the four larger Hawaiian Islands compared to last February. Visitor expenditures increased on Hawaii Island (+11.5%), but declined on Oahu (-3.3%) and Maui (-1.1%), and was virtually unchanged on Kauai compared to February 2013.

There were 847,238 total air seats to Hawaii in February 2014, comparable to last February. Scheduled seats from Other Asia (+15.7%), Oceania (+13.8%), Japan (+9.2%) and Canada (+6.7%) increased but scheduled seats from U.S. West (-1.8%) declined.

Year-to-date 2014:

For the first two months of 2014, total visitor expenditures fell 2.8 percent to $2.6 billion and total arrivals decreased 2.1 percent to 1,329,393 visitors.

Arrivals by air from U.S. West (-5.8%) and U.S. East (-2.5%) declined, while arrivals from Japan (+3.7%), Canada (+2.9%), Other Asia (+18.9%), Oceania (+13.8%) and Europe (+7.5%) increased.

Total visitor expenditures were lower on all Hawaiian Islands except Kauai (+4.2%) compared to year-to-date 2013.

Other Highlights:

· For U.S. West, arrivals from the Pacific region fell 6.5 percent from February 2013. There were fewer visitors from California (-8.7%), particularly from the San Diego (-4.8%), San Francisco (-10.7%), San Jose (-10.8%) and Sacramento (-14%) metro areas. Arrivals from Washington (-3.5%), Oregon (-3%) and Alaska (-2.7%) also declined. Arrivals from the Mountain region dropped 7.6 percent due to fewer visitors from Arizona (-15.1%), Colorado (-5.7%), Nevada (-8.4%) and Utah (-4.6%). The first two months of 2014 saw declines in arrivals from the Pacific and Mountain regions of 6.1 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively (see Visitor Highlights: Visitor Arrivals by U.S. Region on the HTA website).

· For U.S. East, decreased arrivals from the Mid Atlantic (-7%), New England (-5.9%), East North Central (-1.5%) and East South Central (-1.2%) regions were offset by growth from the West North Central (+4.6%), South Atlantic (+3%) and West South Central (+1.7%) regions. For the first two months of 2014, only the West North Central region (+1.5%) showed growth in arrivals compared to the same period last year.

· The number of visitors from Oceania increased 5.2 percent from February 2013. Arrivals from New Zealand more than doubled to 4,033 visitors, offsetting a 6.7 percent drop in arrivals from Australia to 16,955 visitors. For the first two months of 2014, arrivals from Australia rose 4.5 percent and visitors from New Zealand gained 107.1 percent compared to year-to-date 2013 (see Visitor Highlights: Visitor Arrivals by Country by MMA; and Research & Report: Major Market Areas on the HTA website).

· Arrivals from Other Asia rose 10.1 percent from last February. Supported by new air service, there were three times more visitors from Taiwan in February 2014. Arrivals from Korea (+5% to 14,013 visitors) and China (+4.4% to 15,557 visitors) also increased. Year-to-date, 2014 showed gains in visitors from Korea (+18.8%), China (+4.8%) and Taiwan (+211.7%) compared to the same period last year.

· More visitors came to honeymoon (+14.6% to 43,486) than in February 2013, boosted by increases from Japan (+4.8% to 21,857), U.S. West (+13% to 5,293), U.S. East (+8.3% to 4,299) and All Other (+49.9% to 11,039) markets. Through February 2014, 87,082 visitors came to honeymoon in the islands, an increase of 19.8 percent from year-to-date 2013.

· A total of 56,895 visitors came for meetings, conventions and incentives (MCI) in February 2014, which is an increase of 3.8 percent from last February. More visitors came for conventions (+7.4%) and corporate meetings (+17.5%) but fewer traveled on incentives (-4.4%). For the first two months of 2014, total MCI visitors dropped 4.5 percent to 106,261 visitors.

· Daily spending by Japanese visitors have declined in 13 out of the last 14 months. For the first two months of 2014, daily spending on shopping by Japanese visitors decreased 8.8 percent to $82 per person. Spending on lodging (-9.8% to $111), food and beverage (-5.8% to $51) and transportation (-4.2% to $12) were also lower compared to the first two months of 2013 (see Visitor Expenditures on the HTA website).

· More U.S. East visitors in February 2014 stayed in hotels (+1.7%) but fewer stayed in condominium (-4.1%) and timeshare properties (-2.8%) compared to last February. Among Japanese visitors, hotel stays rose 3.6 percent while condominium usage was down considerably (-20.3%) from February 2013.

Island Highlights for February 2014:

· Oahu: Visitor expenditures on Oahu declined 3.3 percent to $565.6 million in February 2014. Decreased arrivals (-1.6% to 389,785 visitors) and a shorter average length of stay (-4% to 6.69 days) negated higher daily visitor spending (+2.4% to $217 per person) compared to last February. There were more visitors to Oahu from Japan (+2%) but fewer from U.S. West (-4.5%) and Canada (-2.4%) than in February 2013.

· Maui: Arrivals to Maui dropped 2.9 percent to 188,774 visitors in February 2014. Decreases in visitors from U.S. West (-5.4%), Canada (-3.6%) and Japan (-37.5%) were offset by a 2.6 percent growth from U.S. East. Visitor expenditures on Maui fell 1.1 percent to $335.9 million.

· Kauai: Visitor expenditures on Kauai totaled $120.8 million in February 2014, similar to a year ago. Fewer arrivals (-8.5% to 82,430 to visitors) were offset by higher daily spending (+3.7% to $183 per person) and a longer average length of stay (+5.6% to 8 days). Fewer visitors to Kauai from U.S. West (-11.9%), U.S. East (-4%) and Japan (-35.4%) offset a 2.5 percent increase from Canada compared to February 2013.

· Hawaii Island: Although arrivals to Hawaii Island were down (-7.4% to 120,947 visitors) compared to February 2013, higher daily spending (+10.8% to $191 per person) and a longer average length of stay (+8.6% to 7.9 days), contributed to an 11.5 percent growth in visitor expenditures to $182 million. There were more visitors to Hawaii Island from Canada (+6%) but fewer from U.S. West (-6.4%), U.S. East (-1.9%) and Japan (-25.3%).

Mike McCartney, HTA President and CEO

For the first 59 days of the year, we have seen a plateau or leveling off of our 2014 arrivals and expenditures. Here is a summary of facts:

* There are 303 fewer air passenger arrivals per day (-1.4%).

* There are about 219,808 guests in Hawaii on any given day (-1.0%).

* Everyday our guests spent $43.8 million per day and contributed $4.7 million in state tax revenue (-2.8%).

* Spent an average of $196.5 per person per day, $3.30 less than in 2013(-1.6%).

* Spent an average of $1,944 per person per trip, $16 less than in 2013 (-0.8%).

We have seen fewer arrivals from U.S. West and U.S. East. In 2013, 780,000 (59% of visitor market share) visited the Hawaiian Islands compared to 744,627 (58% of market share) in 2014.

We have seen a slight increase in arrivals from international markets from 533,803 (41% of visitor market share) in 2013 compared to 551,257 (42% of visitor market share) in 2014.

On Hawaii Island, length of stay continued to increase (+6.5% to 8.65 days), which contributed to a 4.2 percent increase in per person per trip spending through February 2014. This helped to balance a drop in visitor arrivals to the island (-5.1% to 251,005 visitors), resulting in slight declines in total visitor expenditures (-1.2% to $376 million) compared to the same period last year.

While our mature U.S. West and U.S. East markets have been declining, a trend we anticipate continuing into the second quarter of the year, the HTA has been focusing on growing arrivals from international markets like Korea, China and Taiwan.

Our pivot to further develop international markets will help sustain Hawaii’s tourism economy for the long term.

As we move forward with our strategy, we see tremendous potential and are committed to diversifying our global portfolio as well as increasing the Meetings, Conventions, and Incentives (MCI) market segment and first-time visitors.

It is important that we offer our visitors greater ease of access to all of our Hawaiian Islands and need to secure additional airlift so that international visitors are able to experience all of the unique attributes of our Hawaiian Islands, beyond Waikiki.

We will continue to work towards reestablishing Kona as a second international port of entry, as well as increasing more neighbor island connections during peak international arrival times on Oahu.

Our competition will continue to increase and we must be mindful that our visitors can choose a different destination.

In order for the Hawaiian Islands to remain a top-of-mind destination, it is important that we continue to offer value to our guests while providing unique experiences and quality service.

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