LIHUE — The tourism industry on Kauai is continuing a strong push to the finish of 2018.
Kauai welcomed 102,516 visitors in November, up 6.4 percent from November 2017. For the first 11 months of the year, Kauai has had 1.3 million visitors, an 8.2 percent increase.
Visitors to Kauai spent $141.7 million in November, a 13.9 percent increase from November 2017. For the year through November, visitors spent $1.8 billion, an increase of 11.6 percent.
Visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent a total of $1.29 billion in November, which was nearly flat (down 0.3 percent) compared to November 2017, according to preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
Year-to-date through the first 11 months of 2018, visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent a total of $16.22 billion, an increase of 8 percent compared to the same period last year.
Total visitor arrivals statewide rose to 781,990 (plus 4.3 percent) in November compared to a year ago, with growth realized in arrivals from both air service (plus 4.1 percent to 770,126) and cruise ships (plus 21.1 percent to 11,864). Total visitor days increased by 3 percent.
More visitors came by air from U.S. West (plus 11.3 percent), U.S. East (plus 7.5 percent), Japan (plus 3.1 percent) and Canada (plus 0.7 percent) in November, while fewer visitors came from All Other International Markets (down 19.7 percent) versus last year.
Oahu, Maui and Kauai all recorded increases in both visitor spending and visitor arrivals in November year-over-year. Visitor spending on Oahu grew slightly to $609.1 million (plus 0.9 percent) with visitor arrivals increasing to 456,121 (plus 2.8 percent). Maui saw visitor spending grow to $364.6 million (plus 1.7 percent) and visitor arrivals to 225,178 (plus 4.1 percent). The island of Hawaii recorded declines in both visitor spending of $154.4 million (down 18.3 percent) and visitor arrivals of 123,032 (down 10.0 percent).
Hawaii’s four largest visitor markets, U.S. West (plus 9.9 percent to $6 billion), U.S. East (plus 9.0 percent to $4.13 billion), Japan (plus 1.9 percent to $2.12 billion) and Canada (plus 6.6 percent to $960.7 million), all reported growth in visitor spending compared to the same period last year.
