For the sixth consecutive year, Hawaii’s tourism industry in 2017 achieved new annual record totals in five key categories, visitor spending, generated tax revenue, visitor arrivals, trans-Pacific air seats serving Hawaii and jobs supported statewide, according to preliminary year-end statistics released today by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. This included over 392,000 arrivals from Australia & New Zealand (up 0.6%)
Visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent $16.78 billion[1] in 2017, an increase of 6.2 percent from the previous record in 2016. Spending by visitors generated a record $1.96 billion in state tax revenue in 2017, an increase of $114.76 million (+6.2%) over 2016.
Additionally, a record 204,000 jobs[2] statewide were supported by Hawaii’s tourism industry in 2017 an increase of 5.2 percent over 2016.
A record total of 12,235,608 trans-Pacific air seats (+1.8%) serviced the Hawaiian Islands in 2017. Growth in air seats from U.S. East (+9.2%), Japan (+8.3%) and Other Asia (+0.7%). This offset fewer seats from Oceania (Australia/New Zealand) (-6.1%) which emphasises the performance from this market to ensure arrivals didn’t also drop.
A total of 9,382,986 visitors came to Hawaii in 2017, surpassing the 2016 record of 8,934,277 visitors by 5 percent. Total visitor days[3] rose 4.7 percent from a year ago. On average, there were 230,113 visitors in the Hawaiian Islands on any given day in 2017, up 5 percent versus 2016.
Arrivals by air rose 4.9 percent to 9,256,761 visitors in 2017, driven by growth from U.S. West, U.S. East, Japan and Canada. Arrivals by cruise ships also increased (+12.2% to 126,225 visitors) with 12 more tours from out-of-state cruise ships compared to 2016.
All four larger Hawaiian Islands realized growth in visitor spending, visitor days and arrivals in 2017 compared to last year. The island of Hawaii recorded the largest increases of all the islands in visitor spending (+14.7% to $2.40 billion), visitor days (+11.2%) and arrivals (+13.7% to 1,762,914) in 2017 compared to 2016, supported by increases in direct air service from U.S. and Japan markets. Visitor spending on Oahu rose 3.9 percent to $7.63 billion, boosted by the growth in visitor days (+3.6%) and arrivals (+4.1% to 5,672,123). Visitor spending on Maui gained 5.2 percent to $4.76 billion, visitor days rose 2.9 percent, and arrivals were up 4.1 percent to 2,742,108 visitors. Visitor spending on Kauai grew 9.6 percent to $1.83 billion, bolstered by growth in visitor days (+5.5%) and arrivals (+7.5% to 1,276,803).
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