Visitor Spending July 2021 Decreased 6.8% from Pre-Pandemic July 2019

Total spending by Hawaiʻi visitors fell from $1.70 billion in July 2019 to $1.58 billion in July 2021, according to preliminary visitor statistics released by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

Prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic and Hawaiʻi’s quarantine requirement for travelers, the Hawaiian Islands experienced record-level visitor expenditures and arrivals in 2019 and in the first two months of 2020.

During July 2021, most passengers arriving from out-of-state and traveling inter-county could bypass the state’s mandatory 10-day self-quarantine with a valid negative COVID-19 NAAT test result from a Trusted Testing Partner prior to their departure to Hawaiʻi through the Safe Travels program. In addition, individuals who were fully vaccinated in the United States could bypass the quarantine order beginning July 8. There were no inter-county travel restrictions in July.

This July a total of 879,551 visitors arrived by air service to the Hawaiian Islands, primarily from the US West and US East. Only 22,562 visitors (+3,798.4%) arrived by air in July 2020. Visitor arrivals in July 2021 declined from the July 2019 count of 995,210 visitors (-11.6%).

Travelers from the US spent 28.7% more this July compared to July 2019, with those from the US West leading the charge and accounting for 60.8% of the total spending this July.

Meanwhile, the lack of international travel decreased expenditures by Japanese, Canadian and all other international visitors significantly (-88.2%) at only 60.8 million this July.

Due to the US CDC’s “Conditional Sail Order”, a phased approach for the resumption of passenger cruises to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19 onboard, Hawaiʻi cruise ships have been out of commission since the pandemic.

Maui Visitor Spending Down 0.4% from July 2019

There were 282,715 visitors to Maui in July 2021, compared to 2,585 visitors in July 2020, versus 307,834 visitors in July 2019. While there were fewer visitors in July 2021 compared to two years ago, a longer length stay (8.35 days, +8.3%) contributed to $504.0 million (-0.4%) in visitor spending, just slightly below the $506.0 million spent in July 2019. 

The average daily census on Maui was 76,195 visitors in July 2021, compared to 2,029 visitors in July 2020, versus 76,577 visitors in July 2019.

Through the first seven months of 2021, there were 1,266,870 visitors to Maui compared to 609,402 visitors (+107.9%) in the first seven months of 2020, versus 1,830,367 visitors (-30.8%) in the first seven months of 2019. For the first seven months of 2021, total visitor spending was $2.23 billion, down 28.2 percent from $3.11 billion in the first seven months of 2019.