Maui has a 95.1% recovery in visitors in 2022 compared to 2019

Maui had a 95.1% recovery in visitors in 2022, compared to 2019, with 2.9 million people visiting Maui last year.  Total visitor spending was $5.69 billion in 2022, up 11% from 2019.  The year-end data was released by the state Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism.  

For the month of December, visitors were down 5.9% and spending was up 8.6% compared to data from December of 2019.  

DBEDT reports there were 259,094 visitors to Maui in December 2022 compared to 275,419 visitors in December 2019. Visitor spending was $557.0 million compared to $513.1 million in December 2019. The average daily census on Maui was 71,461 visitors in December 2022, down from 75,856 visitors (-5.8%) in December 2019.

DBEDT Director Chris J. Sadayasu said, “It is encouraging to see improvement in our international visitor markets. December 2022 visitor arrivals from Japan (36,988) and Canada (58,361) were at the highest monthly levels since the start of the pandemic. Overall, 2022 international visitors that arrived by air recovered 41.3% from 2019, and US visitors were 12.9 percent higher than the 2019 level.”

With the continued appreciation of the Japanese yen, Sadayasu said he expects to see a significant improvement in the Japanese market in 2023.

Statewide, a total of 871,870 visitors arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in December 2022, representing a 91.5% recovery from the same month in 2019. These visitors spent $1.90 billion in December 2022, an increase of 8.2% compared to the $1.75 billion reported for December 2019.

In December 2022, a total of 5,286 trans-Pacific flights with 1,175,147 seats serviced the Hawaiian Islands, compared to 5,676 flights (-6.9%) with 1,252,958 (-6.2%) in December 2019, according to DBEDT.

For all of 2022, A total of 9,247,848 visitors arrived in the islands, representing an 89% recovery from 2019 (10,386,673 visitors). Total visitor spending was $19.29 billion, up 8.9% from $17.72 billion in 2019, the department reports.