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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Steve S says
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!
Beat of Hawaii says
Hi Steve.
Thanks for your many comments. Have a great time on Maui!
Aloha.
Ernest L says
Bummer. My wife and I have been vaccinated, but it looks like we’ll have to be tested anyway for our May trip.
Dan R says
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!
Beat of Hawaii says
Hi Dan.
Thanks. Welcome back to Hawaii this June!
Aloha.
Sue H. says
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.
Richard C says
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.
Beat of Hawaii says
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.
Richard C says
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.
BARBARA M says
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.
Sue H says
This is good news for the Hawaiian economy.
Victoria B says
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.