With pent-up Hawaii travel demand continuing unabated, and the desire for wanderlust very strong, Hawaii is seeing more visitors, and we note that on the ground here as well. Things are looking a lot like 2019, and then some.
The state has just released visitor data, which obviously shows that visitor spending is up hugely in the past year. In February 2022, spending was $1.3b, compared to $397m (up 230%) in February 2021. If you look at statistics before Covid, last month’s spending was just slightly less than the $1.5b spent in 2020 and $1.4b in February 2019. Given that international arrivals have largely still not returned, that means that domestic travel to Hawaii is heading up; way up.
Hawaii visitor data is out.
Last month, 377k visitors arrived by air from the all-important U.S. West, compared to 312k in February 2019. That’s up 21%. Visitor spending was pegged at $728m, compared with $500m in February 2019. So costs are also up, with spending now running 46% higher than in 2019.
U.S. East visitors were 187k, up 6% compared with 2019, with spending up 12% as well.
In February there were in total (domestic, and international), 4,484 trans-Pacific flights serving nearly one million seats to Hawaii. That’s virtually unchanged, when compared with 2019. Here too, the lack of international flights indicates there are more domestic flights than ever.
The moral of the story is this.
There are many flight options, and as you’ve noted, the cost of airfare is small when compared with the huge increases in Hawaii accommodation and car rental costs.
If you plan to visit us this year, now is a good time to complete the planning.
Good to see things are getting to normal and the restrictions are being removed.