Hawaii is flying high. The island destination continues to attract more visitors, with \numbers on the rise throughout the state while spending continues to increase.
According to its most recent analysis, the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) found that Visitors spent a total of $1.3 billion in the month of May. That is an increase of 8.7 percent versus a year ago.
Arrivals were also up, rising 4.5 percent to 751,191 visitors fueled by an increase in arrivals by air and by cruise ships. According to the HTA, Hawaii's four largest visitor markets, U.S. West, U.S. East, Japan and Canada, all reported year-over-year increases in visitor spending and arrivals for the third straight month during May 2017.
"The month of May, historically an off-peak travel period, maintained the strong pace of Hawaii's tourism industry that no one predicted at the start of the year," said George D. Szigeti, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA).
"Hawaii continued to benefit from robust travel demand, most notably from the mainland U.S., Japan and Canada. Tourism's economic impact was spread across the state, with double-digit increases in visitor spending reported for Maui, Kauai and the island of Hawaii,."
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An increase in the number of arrivals seems to correlate with visitor spending, but it's clear that visitors are also spending more when they come.
For example, U.S. West visitor spending rose 9 percent while arrivals rose 2 percent. Visitor spending from arrivals from the U.S. East rose more than 16 percent, and arrivals grew 10 percent. Visitors arriving from Canada spent 19 percent more than last year while their arrivals were up more than 16 percent.
Direct air service to Kona and increased air service to Honolulu drove up visitor spending and arrivals for visitors coming from Japan.
The growth in spending and arrivals was not concentrated in just one area but spread throughout the islands. Kauai and the island of Hawaii have both recorded double-digit growth in visitor spending during each of the first five months of 2017.
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