Kauai visitors spending more

HONOLULU — Kauai welcomed 103,089 visitors in October, up 2.4 percent from October 2017, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s report released Thursday. Through October, Kauai has had 1.6 million visitors, up 8.4 percent from the same time frame last year.

Visitor spending on Kauai for October totaled $145.1 million, a 2.1 percent increase over October 2017. For the year, Kauai’s visitors have spent $1.7 billion, up 11.5 percent from the first 10 months of 2017.

Statewide, visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent $1.31 billion in October, down slightly compared to a year ago, according to preliminary statistics released by HTA.

Total visitor arrivals rose to 770,359 (plus 4.4 percent) in October, with growth in arrivals from both air service (plus 4.0 percent) and cruise ships (plus 20.1 percent).

More visitors came by air from U.S. West (plus 9.3 percent), U.S. East (plus 7.3 percent) and Canada (plus 1.5 percent) in October, while fewer visitors arrived from Japan (minus 3 percent.

In October, Oahu recorded a slight decrease in visitor spending (down 0.5 percent to $598.4 million) despite increased visitor arrivals (plus 4.3 percent to 467,747) compared to a year ago.

Maui realized growth in both visitor spending (plus 1.8 percent to $377.3 million) and visitor arrivals (plus 1.8 percent to 216,606).

The island of Hawaii recorded declines in both visitor spending (down 11.4 percent to $169.2 million) and visitor arrivals (down 15.7 percent to 115,573) compared to October of last year.

Year-to-date through October, visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent a total of $14.9 billion, an increase of 8.8 percent compared to the first 10 months of last year.