Hawaii’s tourism industry is healthy again as 735,340 visitors spent time in the Hawaiian Islands in November 2022, a 90.9% recovery from the same month at the onset of the pandemic in November 2019.
The visitors spent $1.52 billion in November 2022, an increase of 13.7% compared to the $1.34 billion reported for November 2019.
Preliminary visitor statistics released by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) showed that 725,469 visitors in November arrived by air service, mainly from the U.S. West and U.S. East; a recent news release from Gov. Josh Green’s office said. An additional 9,872 visitors arrived by cruise ships during the month.
“Hawaii tourism continued to steadily recover in November with international visitor recovery at 53.7 percent as compared with the same month in 2019; this is the highest international recovery rate since the start of the pandemic in April 2020,” DBEDT Director Chris J. Sadayasu said in a statement included in the release. “The 27,898 visitors from Japan in November 2022 represented the second highest monthly count since the pandemic and the highest recovery rate at 21.2 percent as compared with November 2019. Year-to-date through November, total visitor count recovered 88.8 percent from the same period in 2019.
“While we may experience a slowdown in the U.S. visitors coming into 2023, we hope that more international visitors will be coming in the new year and our tourism recovery continues in 2023. We expect full tourism recovery in 2025.”
In November 2022, 415,610 visitors arrived from the U.S. West, an increase of 10.8% compared to 375,244 visitors in November 2019. There were 166,327 visitors from the U.S. East in November 2022, a 10.6% increase from the 150,386 visitors in November 2019.
There were 27,898 visitors from Japan in November 2022 compared to 131,536 visitors in November 2019, a drop of 78.8%. In November 2022, 44,686 visitors arrived from Canada compared to 50,598 visitors (-11.7%) in November 2019. In November 2022, there were 70,947 visitors from all other international markets, which included visitors from Oceania, Other Asia, Europe, Latin America, Guam, the Philippines and the Pacific Islands.
Through the first 11 months of 2022, total visitor spending was $17.40 billion, up 9.0% from the $15.96 billion spent in the first 11 months of 2019.
