Domestic visitor days in Hawai’i increased by 0.6 percent in October 2003 compared to the same month last year, according to data released by DBEDT on Wednesday. A decrease in international visitor days of 6.2 percent resulted in an overall
Domestic visitor days in Hawai’i increased by 0.6 percent in October 2003 compared to the same month last year, according to data released by DBEDT on Wednesday.
A decrease in international visitor days of 6.2 percent resulted in an overall drop of 1.0 percent in visitor days compared to October 2002.
However, the total average length of stay rose slightly to 9.18 days.
International arrivals continued to show improvements over the past few months.
In fact the number of Japanese visitors who came for conventions, meetings and incentives (MCI) rose 28.1 percent from last October
“October 2003 domestic visitor days were the second highest October on record,” said Tourism Liaison, Marsha Wienert. “Hawaii’s strong domestic market continues to have positive effects on the overall health of the visitor industry and our Japanese market continues to improve especially in the MCI market,” continued Wienert.
Visitor Days: Total visitor days for the first 10 months of 2003 surpassed the same period last year by 3.3 percent.
The average length of stay by these visitors increased to 9.74 days (an increase of 4.4 percent).
Total Repeat/First Time Visitors: Year-to-date, repeat visitors accounted for 62 percent of the total visitors to the islands while 38 percent were first timers.
The large number of returning visitors to the state contributed to an 8.1 percent growth in neighbor island only visitations.
On Kaua’i, arrivals went down 2.4 percent from October of last year to 2003.
Total visitor days in October for Kaua’i was up 4.5 and 2.9 percent from tourists in the U.S. West and East regions but was down 31.7 and 26.4 percent from Japan and Canadian visitors.
Cruise Visitors: A total of 57 cruise ships toured the islands in the first 10 months of 2003 carrying 192,326 out-of-state visitors, including those who arrived by air to board these ships and those who came with the ships.
The number of visitors was 2.4 percent higher compared to the same period last year when 52 cruise ships toured Hawai’i.
Close to 42 percent of the out-of-state cruise visitors were first time visitors to the islands, compared to 40.5 percent in the same period last year.
Year-to-date, these cruise visitors stayed an average of 7.30 days in Hawai’i, of which 4.54 days were spent on their cruise and another 2.77 days were spent before and after their cruise was over.
On Kaua’i, visitors by cruise ships increased 2.3 percent in October of 2003 from last year.
Total air seats at the Lihu’e Airport were up 27 percent in October of 2003.
Year-to-date data shows that Lihu’e Airport scheduled seats are up 55 percent from 2002.
