More good news is coming to Hawaii travel today in the form of data points released by the Hawaii Tourism Authority, an uptick in airline demand, and a vaccine passport travel update below.
Within a month, if Lieutenant Governor Josh Green gets his way, Hawaii may lift all testing requirements for interisland travel. A month after that, Hawaii may begin offering vaccine passport travel to complement its Safe Travel testing program. Lieutenant Governor Green also said, “We have a lot of partners coming together right now. It’s a fairly complicated process to be able to access databases to confirm someone got their vaccine completed.”
In the past week, Hawaii Tourism Authority reported a total of 130,000 arrivals to the islands.
That compared with 2019, the last comparable year when March arrivals averaged 217,000 per week. If those numbers are true and given that spring break dates were similar, Hawaii travel may have just rebounded to 60% of normal. That’s really quite amazing and good news for those of you coming to Hawaii and those who live here and rely on Hawaii tourism.
Reasons Hawaii is rebounding more quickly than expected include:
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- Hawaii’s lower COVID positivity and other data points.
- International travel remains largely on-hold for the foreseeable future. As a Hawaii part-timer from England, Michael just commented, “Great to hear some folks from the States are getting back to visit, but any news about International visitors getting back. Have had one jab and expect the second in April.”
- Airlines are feeling quite optimistic about Hawaii travel too. Hawaiian has just launched its most aggressive route expansion ever, plus another new Maui route ticket sales started today.
- Hawaii regular United Airlines also just decided to increase its Hawaii services through the summer. Starting in June, UAL will add summer flights between Maui and Newark and between Kona and Chicago. Those will both operate 5x weekly, an increase over what was originally scheduled.
- United is expanding other Hawaii flights, too, increasing frequencies on routes to and from Denver. The airline is also re-starting a long-requested service to Orange County from Honolulu.
Also, airlines including Southwest are returning to some pre-COVID processes. Passengers on SWA, for example, will now board 30 at a time instead of 10, revising a COVID policy the company implemented last year.
What are your plans for coming back to Hawaii?
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Good thing all these flights are happening AFTER my trip. I’m going to Maui during the “off season” and had my rental car (Alamo) confirmed since February. My price is under $500 for the week (premium car) and they guarantee I’ll have my car because most people want to rent convertibles or small cars. Mahalo BOH!
Hi Steve.
Thanks for your many comments. Have a great time on Maui!
Aloha.
Bummer. My wife and I have been vaccinated, but it looks like we’ll have to be tested anyway for our May trip.
Planned for last year in July — now booked for June 11-28 for Oahu, Big Island and Kauai.
Vaccinated and ready for test if still needed… Have children under the vaccine age so tests
are probably still in our future either way.
Thanks for all of the updates — it is the only thing helping us stay sane!
Hi Dan.
Thanks. Welcome back to Hawaii this June!
Aloha.
I will be coming back for a 15 night visit in October and hoping all will be back to normal. But just in case I am vaccine ready and masks will be packed.
Aloha BOH Bro’s
From the Costco Travel Website:
Limited Rental Car Availability – Due to COVID and car manufacturing shortages, rental car availability is extremely limited. If you are not able to find a rental car for your desired travel dates, please either search for new travel dates or select a transfer service instead.
Also From Costco Travel Website:
We are experiencing an extremely high volume of calls at this time. We invite you to book online and use our online Help Center – Opens a dialog, so our agents can assist members who need to cancel, change an existing reservation, or book using an air credit. We apologize for the inconvenience.
I booked our up coming October trip to Maui in January through Costco Travel since then the same package has spiked in price by over $1,500.00
My feeling is travel experts have grossly under estimated how quickly the travel industry will recover from the covid pandemic lockdowns.
Hi Richard.
Thanks for all your comments. We concur. Hawaii seems to be going from near zero to 100 in a matter of days. Whew.
Aloha.
Also as a heads up to those using Costco Travel or Discount Hawaiian Car Rental make sure to cancel any unused rental car reservations.
On our last trip the couple next to us at the rental car counter had 4 reservations through Costco. The counter person at Alamo wasn’t to happy with those folks.
Our counter person told me that double and triple booking by mostly Costco users is a big problem. Ties up inventory and unnecessarily drives rental car prices higher.
We’ve never used Costco – for decades we’ve used Discount Hawaii – but this summer, Costco is $500 cheaper for our three week stay – $600+ cheaper than AAA or other sites.
This is good news for the Hawaiian economy.
We are so excited!!!! We were cancelled for our vacation in April 2020 and then again for October 2020 because of covid19. So we took a leap of faith and rebooked again for October 2021. Hawaiian Air was awesome and we were able to rebook our flight without any issues at all. I’ve been coming to Hawaii almost annually since 1978 and it is like home to me & I have missed everything about Hawaii. We were married there in April 2019 and returned Jan/feb 2020 with the outbreak began never realizing that a global pandemic was about to change our lives. I am grateful to have been vaccinated and looking forward with optimism to a wonderful time in paradise and using my stimulus check to help the locals on Oahu.
We have visited Maui 10+ times. Missed our visit in 2020, but are looking forward eagerly to traveling there in January, 2022. Aloha!
I hope to arrive on Kauai on 5/19. We are fully vaccinated and hope to be able to use a vaccine passport to be able to arrive on the island. Really looking forward to it after losing out last year.
I have a flight book for May 8 from Nevada. I’ll have received my second shot in April. Do you think the vaccine passport will up and going by then from outside travel?
We cancelled in November and then again in January out of an abundance of caution, but we are all-systems go for our week between Kona and Kauai next month. We’ll both be 2 weeks post-vaccination #2, and looking forward to it.
We are coming the last week of May to Kauai. We will both be fully vaccinated and ready to support the locals and Kauai’s economy. Thanks for all of the wonderful updates you provide!
Hi Kristie.
Thank you. We hope you will have a fabulous time here on Kauai.
Aloha.
Aloha Guys,
That’s some great news and it’s been a long time coming. We just made some reservations for Maui. We are on pins and needles as are all the people involved with travel. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. It’s surely nice to have your updates.
Hi Roy.
Thank you. We appreciate your input – close to 100 comments.
Aloha.
We are still on board for our late April trip to Maui from Oakland. This Vaccination Passport will probably go into effect too late for our trip, but we’re still planning on the 72-hour before final leg of our trip COVID NAAT test from Walgreens in NJ. Since we will be in Oakland California the day before our trip to Maui, we’ll have no problem uploading the test results and setting up our Aloha Safe Travels from the Oakland hotel room the night before.
I’m planning my life long dream vacation trip to Oahu next year because I’m waiting on the vaccine passport. I’m a daycare teacher & I’m fully vaccinated now! My Grandfather was in Pearl Harbor & he survived. I’m definitely going to PH to pay my respects! I’m getting very excited about coming:) take care & God Bless…..Andrea:)
God bless your grandfather and all those who served during this horrific time for our country. I thank him for his service and pray for our military all across this world. Let there be peace.
It’s nice to see we’re getting more visitors which will help our visitor related industries and businesses. However, with the increased number of people I see when I go to the downtown area by Ali’i Drive I’m seeing a large amount of people now walking around without wearing a mask. This has been noted in our news casts this week. The excuse people give when asked is they don’t have to wear masks where they come from especially outside, and/or they didn’t know masks are required here. I was once told by a judge “ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law”. To help these folks with their lack of knowledge of our mask laws, could all the flights crossing the ocean from the mainland here have as one (or even twice) on board announcements that we have a mask law in effect which means wearing it even outside with the few exceptions like when seated eating, etc.?
Following
Thanks for this encouraging update. Hopefully all of the airlines will start adding back flights that have been eliminated over the past year. In particular, American Airlines doesn’t seem to have the same options from mainland non-hub cities that they previously offered.
For those who choose not to get the shots do you anticipate any changes in the Safe Travels testing protocol going forward? Is it possible they might extend the testing window from 72 hours to 96? Any word on how long testing will be required for travel from the mainland?
Hi Mike.
Thanks for your many comments. Yes, the Safe Travels testing program will continue. Since we haven’t heard about extending it from 72 so far, we’ll assume that isn’t going to happen. But there are many more options for testing and that should help. We haven’t heard a lot of complaints in comments recently regarding that.
Aloha.
Any idea of dates inter island tests will not be necessary many thanks..
Hi Frances.
We’re hearing next month, but here in Hawaii, we’ll have to wait and see.
Aloha.
Thank you for being the eyes and ears in Hawaii for all us mainlanders! I read all your news year round. 😋
Sounds all very promising. We are visiting my sister in Princeville, Kauai from April 28th to May 10th. Can’t wait, it’s been too long.
A bit nervous about timing the 72 hour negative covid test. We are going with Walgreens here in Maryland.
Hope to be there in just 5 weeks. 🤞
Hi Justin.
We hope that all works out for you. And welcome back to Kauai!
Aloha.
We have friends from DE who are in Maui now, they did the Walgreen’s test, no problem ! So, don’t worry.
We are going to Big Island in April and have our appt for our test at an AFC facility. They have done many tests for Hawaii so we’re confident. We’re fully vaccinated too but I don’t have any problem with having the test.
We cancelled 4 reservations for Kauai last year and early this year and are ready to go. I think the Safe Travel program is very workable, even for “older, non-tech”types like us.
Thanks for the encouraging note!
My wife and I have a trip scheduled for first week of May and that may be in jeopardy because we are not gonna do the negative covid test. We have been vaccinated and if that passport is not available, we ain’t coming. Thank you for the blog, I check it everyday. Hopefully you will tell me the vaccination passport is a go before may 4th. Take care.
Hi Michael.
Thanks. That’s going to be tight timewise, but we hope it works out for you.
Aloha.
Michael S…I agree with your position. I am not willing to bet travel dollars on any timed negative Covid test even though we are already fully vaccinated. Also, we do not have the luxury of waiting for Hawaii to figure out vaccination passport protocols since I would visit in July or August and looking to make reservations now. Sadly, Hawaii government has been moving the goal posts and I simply do not trust them for the foreseeable future. We will spend our 2021 vacation dollars elsewhere and plan to visit Hawaii again in 2022. Also, I do not like the vaccination passport concept for many reasons but would be willing to use the tool in the interim as a bridge. Let’s hope by 20222, travel is unencumbered by these protocols. Best of luck to you.
The key word being “may.” How long are we going to hear Hawaii “may” do this, then they “may” do that. Its to the point we only want to hear final/concrete statements; otherwise its useless jibber. If Hawaii is waiting for “systems” to verify vaccination, that will not happen this year. Folks who get their shots at non-medical facilities are not entered into any database. The only common denominator is the Vaccination Card. Why is the Card not enough?
I’ve already been coming back! Twice in the past four months…and will likely go to the Islands two more times before the end of the year. Although most people despised the COVID lockdowns and restrictions, I loved the empty planes, cheap airfares/hotels, and less traffic. I guess all good things must come to an end.
If you are coming to Hawaii anytime soon I would recommend making some dinner reservations as far ahead as possible, especially if there is some place you really want to enjoy. I tried booking Mama’s Fish House 3 1/2 weeks out and the entire week was already reserved. The other ones we tried still had some nights open but many were filled. The reduced dining must be much of the reason. Also plan on spending far more than you are used to on a rental car. Still worth it though. After losing last year’s trip we are very excited for this one. Fortunately the whole family has been immunized so it makes travel a little less worrisome. Aloha!
Thanks for the heads up David! I was able to snag lunch at Mama’s. Merrimans’s Kapalua was also pretty booked
We are planning to come back to Hawaii in April. Will be visiting Maui and the Big Island. We are disappointed that we will have to test in order to travel from Maui to Kona on April 10. Are there any rapid testing, trusted partner options on Maui? We’ve got appointments scheduled with Kaiser on April 7 but our concerned if they will get our results back within the 72 hours. I feel like we need to have a back up option for another test just to be safe. Does anyone have experience with any of the trusted testing partners on Maui? Thanks for any input you can provide with testing options on Maui.
Hi Kim.
Hopefully, others who’ve tested on Maui can share their experience. There are partners there, and you also have the best by mail options.
Aloha.
Maui Kaiser normally returns results in 24 hours.
From our own personal experience, as owners at the Beach Villas at Ko Olina, we’ve gone from empty for 10+ months to 100% occupied (which is 60% as 40% of the homeowners, don’t rent their villas). What a difference a couple of months makes.
Global policies such as requiring a negative test result to return to the United States when traveling overseas. The fear of being stuck in a third world county when testing positive for COVID and having most of Europe and Asia being closed to outside visitors, is really driving traffic to Hawaii.
It’s been nice for our natural resources to have so much less human intrusion but it did come with a financial cost which was subsidized by the Federal Government. Too bad we couldn’t stay at the 60% tourism level and have some other way to take up the slack financially.
Can’t believe our luck! FINALLY got our first Covid shot with the second one scheduled for two months and 27 days before our trip! So even if THE GOV doesn’t change his mind about the 3 months interval, we’ll be OK! (It would be a VERY foolish decision not to change his mind!)