Let’s be honest. The news from Hawaii is enough to make your head spin. It seems like one day, the governor and mayors are crying to stop all travel and then later worry about loss of income, followed by the cheapest Hawaii airfare deals ever. Whew! And now we see what appears to be a precipitous decline in Hawaii COVID cases and a welcome trend.
It’s certainly great news that Hawaii’s COVID cases are trending sharply downward, and now, predictions from the respected Hawaii Pandemic Applied Modeling Work Group (HIPAM) are suggesting it will continue on a downward trajectory. Previously, HIPAM predicted a massive increase in cases at least into October, which data may have been part of the governor’s toolset in suggesting visitors stay home through October. But now, that is all changing so rapidly it is hard to absorb.
“It can shift either way very quickly… “It seems that mitigations are doing their job, but the issue is that there are still a lot of people unvaccinated, and since we cannot eradicate the Delta once we reopen, it will have its course again. It is not a simple situation.” — HIPAM.
Behavior, vaccination, and the latest Hawaii vaccination passports for hotels and restaurants are all considered factors.
Hawaii boom will restart once the coast is clear.
The recent escalation in Delta Variant Covid cases put a massive dent in Hawaii travel. Other factors included the typical seasonal slowdown from the end of summer until the end of year holidays, not to mention the governor’s warning to pause Hawaii vacations.
Warning: The price of flights to Hawaii will start to trend up soon.
Yesterday’s $62 Hawaii deals are certainly not sustainable. And, while we see many opportunities for a great deal of short-term competition on Hawaii flights, that will eventually settle down, probably sooner than later. For those seeking the lowest airfares, buying soon should yield the best deals. That much is clear.
Swings are mind-boggling even for us.
Hawaii travel has swung back and forth so many times in the past six months or so that it can give us headaches. Hawaii went from record tourism in 2019 to virtually no tourism in 2020. Then this year’s epic rollercoaster started in March as extreme demand for Hawaii travel began. And it has been charging up and down since then.
The summer 2021 boom was beyond expectations.
Visitor arrivals this summer exceeded 30k a day. That came due to pent-up COVID travel demand, increased flights, reasonable prices on airfare, international travel woes, and the sense of safety for which Hawaii is known.
The onslaught of visitors after no visitors resulted in pushback from all the islands, with Maui’s mayor being perhaps the most outspoken about limiting travel to the islands. Kauai’s mayor wasn’t without words either.
Hawaii was unprepared for this summer’s tourism. The state’s infrastructure is lacking and seemingly never improving.
Then came Delta.
In hindsight, it appears we didn’t need to do anything to shut off the tourism tap. That was accomplished mainly by an unprecedented number of Covid cases that the US mainland and Hawaii were not prepared for. The state maintains that the dramatic increase was primarily due to travelers from Hawaii returning to the islands, especially those who were not tested and instead self-quarantined.
With fewer tourists came cries about loss of income.
The situation swung so far back towards little tourism that Maui’s mayor then sounded an alarm: “I had a meeting with the hoteliers on Maui this morning and, as of date, 51,000 room nights have been canceled, $21.4 M loss in revenue and that’s Maui County only.” In June, on the other hand, it was Mayor Victorino who had called for “a pause” in Maui tourism.
Hawaii tourism today.
Hawaii daily arrivals have now dipped to under 20,000 as we enter the slower season. While not unusual for fall, it has been exacerbated by an unusually high cancellation rate state-wide.
We remain hopeful that Hawaii is coming around a curve on new Covid cases. And, the fact that California has the best Covid case numbers in the country doesn’t hurt either, given that California is where the most significant number of Hawaii visitors arrive from. What is certain nowadays, however, is that nothing is certain.
As of today, it seems highly likely that with the arrival of the Thanksgiving and, more importantly, Christmas/New Year holiday season, there will be another surge to the levels seen last summer. But is Hawaii ready for that?
Stay tuned.
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Please Hawaii please test ALL travelers for a negative result 72 hours before departure Vaccinated or Not! Please!!
Dear BOH Bros, I mailed the picture to you today so watch your mailbox for it. Let me know when you get it & have a blessed week!! 😇
Thank you for the updates.
I just want to thank yo guys for saving a lot of people a lot of head scratching including myself. Keep up the good work!
Hi Doug.
Thanks. We appreciate your part in all this too.
Aloha.
Aloha. Can anyone help us figure this out? My daughter completed Safe Travels and even got the QR code for her flight tomorrow, but she still has to enter her 9 year-old son’s negative Covid test. Is this checked at the airport? Or will she get a 2nd QR code for him? Will he get the wristband at the airport to bypass the check in line on the island at the airport? Thank you in advance!
Hi JC.
Someone else may comment with recent experience. We’d suggest you contact the State to inquire at the Safe Travel help desk at 855-599-0888.
Aloha.
Your son’s information gets loaded with any ONE parent (only one parent claim the child) – the QR code embeds all under 18s in one QR code.
Hi Tea.
Thanks for helping out.
Aloha.
I love all the Islands of Hawaii, but I will never go back. They have become all about money. You have to register to go to state and National Parks. You have to pay to park and then you have a certain amount of time you can stay. If you park they come yelling at you and tell you to get out. I thought this beauty was for tourists to enjoy. We also got caught up with Quarantine as they refused to honor our test even though it was our state approved test. They treat you like your a criminal, even put tracking on you, not to mention the cost. What a ripoff I hope Hawaii knows that they have pissed off many travelers, this was our sixth trip over and won’t go back. Did I forget to mention we were fully vaccinated!
Those in the travel industry want us to come back, but those of us who have experienced the feeling of “you are not welcome here” from other locals are in no hurry to go back.
Hi. Having problems subscribing, I keep getting “oops something went wrong” messages. Any suggestions? Thanks
Hi Lauren.
On just checking, you are successfully subscribed.
Aloha.
I would purchase flights for trips next May 2022, July 2022, and August 2022 right now to Kauai, Maui, and Kauai, respectively, but the flights I see for then are quite high from the Midwest. Fares seem to be cheaper 30-60 days in advance for me, but I admit I am limiting myself to United flights.
Are these deals mainly on flights to Hawaii from the West Coast?
I have everything else in place, accommodations, vaccinations, and rental cars for all three trips. I got my rental cars the first day I could thanks to your sage advice, BOH, and am already over $1,000 ahead on those rentals.
Also, I have been hearing negative Covid tests may soon be required on flights for all passengers, including those who are vaccinated. Have you guys heard anything along those lines recently? I hope not, that would impact my plans.
Hi Jake.
Thanks. No word on if travel tests could or would be implemented for all passengers. Yes, the competition is primarily from the west coast which is why the deals are found there. There is little competition from the midwest, so you can’t expect great prices unless someone else enters that sphere.
Aloha.
Dear Jake, I hope that you have a fun & safe trip whenever you do go! 🌺🌈🌏🛩🌺❤🏝🥥🍍🩴🐢🐠🌞🕶 be blessed….psalms 91:11😇
You state this Christmas Hawaii will see a surge .. in what? Covid or people?
Hi Guys. Great job trying to keep a handle on all the changes.
All around the world, countries with high vaccination rates are experiencing high covid increases, especially the Delta variant. Your increase in cases will not be coming from unvaccinated locals returning from the mainland. Do the research. Blaming a group doesn’t solve this dilemma. Working together will. Mahalo!
the research says its almost all from locals
Dear Nancy, thank you & yes that is right….working together will help this situation. We need to stop fighting over issues that aren’t important such as who is to blame, etc. Fighting just causes division & that is what satan wants….division. Think about this statement. Lives of people is what is most important!!! ❤😇🌏Be blessed everyone….psalms 91:11
I spoke with several friends of mine on Oahu today. I asked if they had been down to Waikiki to see the slow down I see on YouTube channels. They all told me most locals and residents want it back the way it was during the shut down. They liked it a lot better and honestly are fine with much lower tourism rates. These people grew up there and are in there late 40s and 50s. Honestly I lived there almost 20 years and would feel the same way. So are most upset at Ige. Actually no.
Dear Liam, I’m looking very forward to the day when I will be sitting on 🛩 traveling to Hawaii!!🌺 It has been my lifelong dream to come to Oahu for my vacation 🎉🛍👒👙🌊🏖🌈🌏❤🏝🥥🍍🩴🐠🐢🌞🕶 I’ve been saving my $$ diligently for over a year now & I’ve postponed my trip until 2023. Stay safe & be blessed psalms 91:11
What a mess this pandemic has caused!
Dear Sue, You can say that again! I wish covid never existed. We as human beings need to be taking steps to keep safe other safe. God bless you….psalms 91:11 😇
Not that it will make a difference among the people who elect them, but this pandemic has revealed a tremendous amount about the lack of character and decision making ability by the Gov. I haven’t met many, but one I did was Gerry Brown. I could go on all day about that, but won’t.
Someone in HI needs to be in charge and accountable for their policies and Ige, while elected to do so, isn’t up to the task.
Not sure who is, but with an island chain and substantial control over who does and who doesn’t fly in there, it’s clear the leadership is not up to the task.
I will be honest the whole way the leaders of the world have handled covid is anti science overall even when they are understanding of the basic science.
Vaccine does not stop the spread nor mitigate getting covid in an effective manner yet most are under the impression being vaccinated means they are above covid.
I been traveling and what I have seen is that vaccinated people have run amok. Maskless parties indoors, restaurants and parks packed with people shoulder to shoulder.
No one follows the guidelines, conservative or liberal. It’s like people create identity politics and some abstract ideas but real life has proven to be far from what the tv or government would like us to know
Instead of making it divisive and treating us like children who only know fear and pleasure be honest and admit the vaccine is not adequate and people need to start being responsible. Something that we stopped doing one week into the pandemic because politicians made this a political issue (both sides are equally guilty including the government political scientists).
Why can’t we install high end ventilation to mitigate covid clouds? Common sense seems to have been totally lost through fear and outrage at the other side.
Whatever you do be sure to be compassionate with others and instead of spreading fear and hatred try spreading kindness and empathy ✌🏽
You are so correct..! THANKYou for expressing exactly how it is ..! As a breakthrough case I totally know how this goes and do not recommend this “slight flu “ , in there words , to anyone.. take every precaution to protect yourself.. it takes months of your life to feel better and not normal.. for a long time.. we love Hawaii so much , please work together to make this go away..! Mahalo..!!
Roller coaster is an understatement!!! Wow 😮
We will be heading back to Hawaii in November for the third time this year. Maui in April, Big Island in August and now Oahu in November.
We absolutely love Hawaii and have managed to navigate all the changes etc. I wish I could understand why there hasn’t been a coming together of the minds (Governor and Mayors) and setting up one plan and sticking to the plan. Hawaii has been so flighty and so many friends that I have spoken with and read about as well …..just have given up on visiting. So sad for the great Aloha State 🌺
We will be back though…we can’t stay away and truly hope the Governing minds put aside their single mindedness and work together for the good of the state and not just their county (island)
See you in November ❤️🌺❤️
Dear Lynn, I’ve postponed my Oahu trip for the 3rd time for 2023. It has always been my lifelong dream to come to Hawaii for my vacation😍 By postponing my trip is the smartest & safest choice I can make for myself & others to stay safe. I’m looking very forward to the day when I’m sitting on 🛩 traveling to Hawaii. My Grandfather was in the Navy & in Pearl Harbor. I’ve always wanted to go to Pearl Harbor to pay my respects since I have a deep connection to 🇺🇸 history!! Pearl Harbor is #1 on my itinerary & my itinerary has been completed for months now. 🛍👒👙🌞🐠🌸🐢🌊🏖🌈🩴🍍🥥🏝❤❤🌺🌏 Have a fun & safe trip when you do go! Be blessed….psalms 91:11😇
It seems that Hawaii residents are unhappy when visitors are visiting and are unhappy when visitors aren’t visiting. Hotel room and short-term rental room rates are now effectively higher than they have ever been. The combination of the TAT, GET, and the 3% Tourism $urge Tax brings the total tax amount to nearly 18%. How does that leave anyone room to support the “local economy” during their visit? When visitor numbers “surge” again this winter is the State going to raise accommodation taxes again? The State of Hawaii appears to be using the Beatles song “Taxman” as their template. I highly recommend viewing the lyrics.
Aloha BOH Bro’s
When politics drives all decision making than this is what you get.
I am so sick of politicians following Covid models that so far are Never right. We are NEVER going to eradicate this disease, we have to let it run its course. Less than 2% of people that contract covid die in the US. I know Hawaii has limited resources but New York was putting up mobile hospitals that were never used. Why couldn’t we do something like that, or use the Mercy ships? It’s because our politicians panic and have non-evidence based knee jerk reactions such as lock downs and asking visitors not to come.
Do you know what 2% is of 331,449,289? That is the total US population. 2% of that is 6,628,985 people that will die if we “let it run it’s corse”. That is a lot of Americans you are willing to sacrifice, not to mention all the other citizens of the world. This is a brand new virus so there were and are mistakes being made but that is no reason to wish 2% of the people of the world dead. Plus if someone you love is in that 2%, it becomes much more personal. Think about others, i promise it is not painful to do so.
GV
Where you err is assuming that ALL 331 million US citizens actually GET covid. There is going to be a large percentage of the population that will never contract the disease. It is this type of fear mongering that has people afraid to live so they can be “safe”. Over 1 million people attempted suicide last year…that’s just for one year. Depression is far scarier than Covid in my opinion.
Covid should give Hawaii the chance to look at the state holistically, from healthcare to tourism to economy to preservation of the landscape. There needs to be some long-range planning that includes teeth. Maui’s Mayor is an example of the problem. First, too many tourists and then not enough. Fiure out a steady state level, knowing that certain high times may exceed it and low times not meet it. Some sort of cap on lodging numbers, that includes hotels, condos, VRBOs, etc. needs to be developed. If somebody, then, wants to build someting “new” they weill need to buy that capacity from a willing on-island seller. The Hospital system needs re-examination. Probably not necessary to plan for a huge disaster but current capacity is obviously low. This is really a chance to get it right. Or not.
We just canceled our trip for early November. We’ve been traveling to Hawaii quite regularly since the late 1970s. And, we believe that we’ll get to go again under less stressful circumstances. I would have loved to have seen Hawaii crackdown faster, we could be so much further down the road than we are. We get it, the corporations are not going to be happy with restrictions, they are not set up to look down the road, they need income, and now!
Message boards are full of people taking their ‘trip of a lifetime’ or ‘bucket list trip’. It seems that it’s tough for them to give up on their dream even during a worldwide pandemic. Fortunately for them, they wouldn’t know if the situation is better or worse than other times. I’m betting they enjoy their trips.
I really look forward to the time when BOH and all of the other sites I visit regularly can return to people actually looking to share information about Hawaii not bots and angry posters visiting sites solely to shill for their ‘facts’.
It certainly can’t be fun for the moderators and I thank you for performing a thankless task.
Fingers crossed for 2021.
Hi Peg.
Thanks. We hope you can return again soon.
Aloha.
HIPAM – Hawaii’s answer to voodoo.
Hawaii needs to set a plan in place!!!
This isn’t fair too tourist and local businesses losing revenue!! Pandemic or not
Come on Hawaii get it together!!
We arrive late next week, fully vaccinated, and looking forward to a very quiet and relaxing stay putting money back into the Hawaiian economy but while not engaging in many activities.
Thankful the numbers are down—Covid and tourists!
Please visitors adhere to Governor Ige’s request and cancel any upcoming trips the residents here are clearly not to blame for the rise given it was down before tourists started returning and are now declining again when visitors are canceling. We let too many slip through the cracks with the vaccine cards we are working on reinstating testing for everyone mahalo!
The reason there was a rise and fall had little to do with tourists. Everywhere there is a drastic rise and drop of the delta variant. It has nothing to do with masks, lockdowns or travel restrictions. It has to do with the nature of the virus. Less than 2 percent die from this virus in the US. If we are waiting to open until this virus is contained, it will never happen
Room rates on maui were 52 percent higher than 2019 for the summer. Maui news dot com has an article it’s insane what people were paying. 962 a night average in wailea? I was feeling bad for Hawaii but not so much after reading that. Lahaina area was up the same. I guess $$$$ brings out the aloha spirit more. Isn’t it amazing how case counts went down when people stayed away vaxxed or unvaxxed? And how cases shot up when testing of vaxxed stopped. Causation or correlation? Just re implement testing for all passengers the vax doesn’t protect spread of delta it’s like asking last years flu shot to work against this years flu.
It’s more than covid cases scaring tourists away. You add astonishing new taxes to tourist visits. We never know what the requirements will be at any given time so it’s hard to plan. No one wants and most of us can’t afford to take the chance at losing our vacation time off work or our money we spend on airfare, car rentals we can’t count on and hotel costs. We don’t feel wanted and until there is some stability we won’t be coming to Hawaii.
Thanks for always giving us the best, latest info.
Please expand on “Buying soon should yield the best(airfare)deals. That much is clear”
We are heading to Kauai for the first three weeks in February 2022 out of Chicago, would you advise booking the airfare now? Fares still appear quite high(slightly under $1,000) on the best flights.
Thanks!
Hi Jim.
Checking 2/1-22, the price on UAL with a great connection is $475 RT. AA is $40 more. That’s actually a great price.
Aloha.
We in Hawaii are governed by cowards and fools! There is no nice way to say that and the facts speak for themselves! Tourism is roughly 21 percent of the Hawaiian economy with around 1 percent of the covid cases linked to visitors. In spite of what you see on social media, for the most part, tourist come in to the state disease free, spend thousands of dollars, mind their P and Q’s and leave! Wouldn’t we all love to have in laws like that. Those abandoned cars, roadside piles of trash, Heineken bottles on the beach, homeless camps, crime, miserable roads, et. al are local problems! Shame on our politicians for using tourist as scapegoats for their chronic ineptitude!
The abandoned cars are controlled by nepotism and chronyism as they have tried to bring in outside vendors before but the powers that be control the contract for that. They move maybe one or two cars a week. I lived in maui 15 years it’s impossible to change anything took Costco almost 10 years to get gas pumps in. Who do you think killed the super ferry. Hawaii isn’t the place to go if you want change.
Spot on brah🤙🤙 Locals and so called leaders find it easy to bash tourists Of course there are exceptions but most visitors are respectful, and love the islands! Tax and whine seems to be the constant cry.
Thank you for your post -I agree
Money, money, money, it’s very holistic!
“…and since we cannot eradicate the Delta once we reopen, it will have its course again”.
Clue in…..you will NEVER eradicate the virus…If that is your standard for going back to normal you already lost. Just as the traditional flu is seasonal, some years better than others even with the annual flu shot…..it is still around too!
“I had a meeting with the hoteliers on Maui this morning and, as of date, 51,000 room nights have been canceled… it was Mayor Victorino who had called for “a pause” in Maui tourism.
It never ceases to amaze me how disconnected Hawaii’s politicians are from their own decisions.
As I mentioned above raising the rates of hotels room 50 percent isn’t exactly inviting. 4 x for a rental car, lines for 2 hours for a shave ice. Apps to track you mask requirements etc. When most stuff is closed or service and staff is lacking and restrictions are everywhere and people are being fleeced makes the aloha spirit tough to swallow. Eventually people figure it out.
Aloha Florida for us. It’s a free state still