Hawaii Tourism Authority announced the preliminary year-end statistics; revealing total number of visitors and visitor spending in 2018.
Visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent $17.82 billion in 2018, an increase of 6.8 percent compared to 2017. Spending by visitors generated $2.08 billion in state tax revenue in 2018, an increase of $133.1 million (+6.8%) from 2017.
Additionally, 217,000 jobs statewide were supported by Hawaii’s tourism industry in 2018, up 6.8 percent from 2017.
In 2018, visitor spending increased from the U.S. West (+9.1% to $6.64 billion), U.S. East (+8.1% to $4.57 billion), Japan (+2.1% to $2.31 billion), Canada (+5.6% to $1.10 billion) and All Other International Markets (+4.5% to $3.17 billion) compared to 2017.
On a statewide level, average daily visitor spending was up (+1.4% to $201 per person) in 2018 versus 2017. Visitors from Canada (+4.0%), Japan (+3.0%), U.S. East (+1.5%), U.S. West (+1.2%) and All Other International Markets (+1.1%) spent more per day in 2018 versus 2017.
A total of 9,954,548 visitors came to Hawaii in 2018, an increase of 5.9 percent from the 9,404,346 visitors in 2017. Total visitor days rose 5.3 percent in 2018. On average, there were 242,629 visitors in the Hawaiian Islands on any given day in 2018, up 5.3 percent from 2017.
Arrivals by air service increased to 9,827,132 visitors (+5.9%) in 2018, with growth from U.S. West (+9.6%), U.S. East (+7.9%), Canada (+2.7%) and All Other International Markets (+2.0%) offsetting a slight decrease from Japan (-1.0%). Arrivals by cruise ships rose slightly to 127,415 visitors (+0.5%) compared to 2017.
Oahu, Maui and Kauai all recorded increases in both visitor spending and visitor arrivals in 2018 versus 2017. Visitor spending on Oahu rose to $8.16 billion (+7.2%) with visitor arrivals of 5,935,007 (+4.3%). Maui visitor spending totaled $5.07 billion (+8.3%) with visitor arrivals of 2,914,122 (+6.2%). Kauai finished the year with visitor spending of $2.00 billion (+10.2%) and visitor arrivals of 1,377,777 (+7.6%). Visitor spending on the island of Hawaii was flat in 2018 at $2.40 billion (+0.2%), while visitor arrivals decreased to 1,718,181 (-2.5%) compared to 2017.
A total of 13,248,069 trans-Pacific air seats serviced the Hawaiian Islands in 2018, up 8.3 percent from 2017. Growth in air seat capacity from U.S. West (+10.7%), Oceania (+10.3%), U.S. East (+8.9%), Canada (+5.6%) and Japan (+2.7%) offset fewer air seats from Other Asia markets (-6.5%).
In December 2018, visitor spending declined to $1.61 billion (-3.5%) year-over-year. Total visitor days (+1.8%) and arrivals increased to 910,060 (+3.4%) but the average daily spending of visitors declined to $190 per person (-5.2%) in December 2018 compared to December 2017.
