The terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dealt a blow to the tourism industry, but as American travelers turned their attention to domestic destinations, Kaua‘i tourism recovered. “The strength of the U.S. visitor market has to do with concern over
The terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dealt a blow to the tourism industry, but as American travelers turned their attention to domestic destinations, Kaua‘i tourism recovered.
“The strength of the U.S. visitor market has to do with concern over travel in the international market,” said Pearl Imada Iboshi, a state economist with the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
The uptick in domestic visitors helped counteract an already slowing stream of international tourists.
In 2002 domestic visitors spent 5.8 million days on the island, up 4.2 percent from 2001. International travelers spent 527,999 days on Kaua‘i, down 2.6 percent.
“A lot of people perceive the destination as being still in the United States, but exotic,” said Sue Kanoho, director of the Kaua‘i Visitors Bureau. “There was a little dip, because everybody just froze. But literally within two months we were almost back.”
The number of visitors in September 2001 fell 21.4 percent to 63,444.
Occupancy at some hotel rooms fell to about 60 percent immediately following the attacks, she said, with the hardest-hit properties reporting 50 percent of available rooms vacant.
Tourism jobs fell, with retail jobs in the fourth quarter of 2001 dropping almost 10 percent to 3,700.
The quarter’s accommodation jobs fell to 3,550, down almost 9 percent from the year earlier period.
But Kaua‘i recovered quickly, due largely to the greater number of timeshares, Kanoho said.
“People were committed already and the infrastructure wasn’t impacted,” she said.
Businesses and workers kept damages to a minimum, said Margy Parker, current spokeswoman and former executive director of the Po‘ipu Beach Resort Association.
“There were not full staff layoffs,” she said. “There were cutbacks in staff hours.”
Sam Pratt, board chair for the Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce at the time of the attacks, said that the community weathered the uncertainty by drawing on lessons learned after Hurricane Iniki, which hit Kaua‘i on Sept. 11 nine years earlier.
“Our community understood better how to respond to crisis like that, how to bond,” he said. “People had to get together as a community and a family.”
That response paid off, he said.
“In the early days, it was doom and gloom,” he said. “The economy has come back tremendously since then.”
• Charlotte Woolard, business writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or cwoolard@kauaipubco.com.
