Statewide and here on Kaua’i, good signs for the economy keep coming. On the state level, Hawai’i continued its drive toward a record-breaking year for tourism. According to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, August was the
Statewide and here on Kaua’i, good signs for the economy keep coming.
On
the state level, Hawai’i continued its drive toward a record-breaking year for
tourism. According to the state Department of Business, Economic Development
and Tourism, August was the seventh consecutive month in which the number of
visitors to the state exceeded the visitor count for the same month in 1999.
The overall numbers were “exemplary,” crowed Seiji Naya, the department’s
director.
All told, nearly 636,000 tourists arrived in August this year.
Kaua’i actually recorded a slight decline of 2 percent (98,209, down from
100,203 the previous August), but on the flip (and more positive) side, the
number of international visitors to Hawaii’s westernmost island increased over
that of a year ago.
Speaking of Kaua’i, a land developer who has had
projects in Baltimore, Md. and Salt Lake City, Utah, now is making his presence
felt here. Grant Welsh bought the Lihu’e Plantation Building and is hatching
plans to lure high-tech tenants to the office building at the same time the
structure is being renovated.
Progressive-thinking entrepreneurs such as
Welsh, plus the steadying influence of tourism, bode well for the future of
Kaua’i and its sister islands.
