Hawaii’s visitor industry continues to be hit hard by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Visitor arrivals statewide decreased 77.3% in November compared to a year ago, according to preliminary statistics released by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. In November, 183,779 visitors traveled to Hawaii by air service, compared to 809,076 visitors who came by air service and cruise ships in November 2019, the HTA said.
Most of the visitors were from the U.S. west (137,452, a decrease of 63.4% compared to last year) and U.S. east (40,205, -73.3%). In addition, 524 visitors came from Japan (a decrease of 99.6%) and 802 came from Canada (-98.4%).
In the first 11 months of 2020, total visitor arrivals statewide dropped 73.7% to 2,480,401 visitors, with considerably fewer arrivals by air service (-73.7% to 2,450,610) and by cruise ships (-77.5% to 29,792) compared to the same period a year ago.
Year-to-date, visitor arrivals by air service decreased from U.S. west (-72.4% to 1,154,401), U.S. east (-70.7% to 604,524), Japan (-79.5% to 295,354), Canada (-66.9% to 157,367) and all other international markets (-79.2% to 238,963).
On the Big Island, there were 28,070 visitors in November compared to 131,713 a year ago. Through the first 11 months of 2020, arrivals fell 72.0% to 444,192 visitors. Visitor spending on Hawaii Island was $54.4 million in November, a decline of 66.2% compared to November 2019.
