LIHUE — Visitors continued to come to Kauai and spend lots of money in the month of April.
“Hawaii’s four island counties each generated excellent visitor spending totals in April, with Oahu leading the way with an increase of 15.9 percent,” George D. Szigeti, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. “It was especially heartening to see Kauai produce such strong results after enduring the record-setting rainfall and destructive flooding that shut down the North Shore beyond Wainiha, including the popular Haena State Park and Kalalau Trail.”
For Kauai, there were 111,304 visitors in April, according to HTA, a 9.9 percent increase over April 2017. Through the first four months of the year, Kauai has welcomed 449,876 guests, a 13.2 percent increase over the same time frame last year.
Kauai saw more visitors from Japan (plus 19.5 percent), Canada (plus 14.2 percent), U.S. West (plus 13.2 percent) and U.S. East (plus 6.2 percent).
Visitor spending on Kauai in April rose 11.9 percent to $157.4 million, while visitor spending for 2018 through April totaled $683.8 million, a 7.2 percent increase.
Visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent a total of $1.4 billion in April, an increase of 13.4 percent compared to last year, according to HTA. Total visitor arrivals rose 6.6 percent to 803,005 visitors in April, supported by growth in arrivals from both air service (plus 6.5 percent to 786,053) and cruise ships (plus 11.7 percent to 16,951).
“Hawaii tourism continued to enjoy the benefits of increased air seat capacity and strong travel demand during the shoulder month of April, as visitor spending grew by 13.4 percent to $1.42 billion,” Szigeti said. “Hawaii’s key visitors markets in the Mainland U.S., Japan and Canada all produced admirable results, but it was the combined performance of the other international markets, with a 34.7 percent increase in visitor spending, that helped solidify April’s success.”
April’s visitor spending elevated the tax revenue that tourism has generated for the state of Hawaii so far in 2018 to $728.5 million, which is an increase of 10.8 percent, or $71.3 million more than last year.
“A third of the year is now in the books and the tourism industry has turned in strong results,” Szigeti said. “The credit is shared by the thousands of tourism professionals who are committed to excellence in service and making a vacation in the Hawaiian Islands a memorable event for our visitors. On behalf of the HTA, we extend our warmest mahalo to all of those employed in our state’s largest and leading industry for their hard work and dedication to sharing the aloha spirit every day.”
