Hawaii set records in visitor spending and arrivals in 2013, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA).
Visitors spent $14.5 billion in the state last year, an increase of 2 percent from the $14.3 billion spent in 2012. That included contributing $1.5 billion in state tax revenue.
On top of that, Hawaii welcomed 8,235,510 visitors, an increase of 2.6 percent from the 8 million that visited the Hawaiian Islands in 2012.
"While our core U.S. market remained strong, there were significant increases in arrivals and spending from the growing Other Asia (China, Korea and Taiwan) and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) markets," said Mike McCartney, president and CEO of the HTA. "Supported by double-digit increases in air seats to the Hawaiian Islands from these two regions, we will continue to focus our efforts on these developing markets with tremendous growth potential."
International travel greatly helped the state. Arrivals from Oceania grew 29.3 percent, while arrivals from Other Asia and Latin America increased by roughly 18 percent.
Visitor expenditures and arrivals increased for both U.S. West and Canada, as well.
The HTA set targets of $15.3 billion in visitor expenditures and 8.48 million arrivals. While the second half of 2013 stunted the HTA's projections, the first half of the year boosted the state enough to still set record numbers.
The HTA pointed to fluctuations in currency exchange rates and tax and fuel charges as factors that slowed growth in the second half of 2013, and the authority noted that it expected this trend to continue through the first half of 2014.
Still, Hawaii has to be proud of the numbers it put up overall in 2013. The Big Island and Kauai each improved dramatically over the previous year in visitor expenditures.
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