Kauai was the leader of the four larger Hawaiian Islands when it came to visitor growth and spending through April. According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, per person per day spending on the Garden Isle rose to $179, up 2.7
Kauai was the leader of the four larger Hawaiian Islands when it came to visitor growth and spending through April.
According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, per person per day spending on the Garden Isle rose to $179, up 2.7 percent, and total expenditures reached $533 million, up 6.2 percent.
Visitor arrivals between January and April climbed to 376,820, an increase of 6.3 percent.
“Expenditures for Hawaii’s visitor industry have started to stabilize with a boost in spending in March and April,” said Ronald Williams, HTA’s chief executive officer.
This helped to bring year-to-date spending in Hawaii on par with last year, reaching nearly $5 billion in total expenditures through April.
Total visitor arrivals in April to the Hawaiian Islands increased 2.3 percent to 677,754, the HTA reported. Visitor days increased on Oahu, up 4.8 percent, Maui (+2.5 percent) and Hawaii Island (+4.3 percent) and was relatively unchanged for Kauai (+0.2 percent) compared to April 2014.
Arrivals on Kauai increased 4.3 percent to 92,452 visitors in April. The number of day trippers to Kauai rose 20.3 percent to 10,453 visitors, resulting in a shorter average length of stay, down 4 percent to 7.27 days).
Visitor expenditures of $116.9 million was about the same compared to April 2014.
Air capacity to the Hawaiian Islands rose 8.9 percent to 978,585 total seats in April. There were more seats to Honolulu (+5.4 percent to 657,739), Kahului (+17.3 percent to 195,493), Kona (+28.5 percent to 67,833), Lihue (+3.7 percent to 53,670) and Hilo (+19 percent to 3,850) than in April 2014.
Six out-of-state cruise ships with 12,361 visitors came in April 2015, down 46.6 percent from last April when 23,157 visitors arrived on 11 ships.
“We are working with our global contractors on innovative ways to drive demand to our destination in the second half of the year,” Williams said in a press release.
