Visitor spending on Maui in April 2023 was up 36% from pre-pandemic 2019

Maui visitor arrivals for April 2023 were down from both year before and pre pandemic levels; but visitor spending was up. The data was compiled by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

April 2023 data for Maui includes the following:

• There were 243,245 visitors to Maui in April 2023, compared to 254,398 visitors (-4.4%) in April 2022 and 247,984 visitors (-1.9%) in April 2019.
• Visitor spending was $544.8 million in April 2023, compared to $496.7 million in April 2022 (+9.7%) and $398.6 million (+36.7%) in April 2019.
• The average daily census on Maui was 61,735 visitors in April 2023, compared to 67,943 visitors (-9.1%) in April 2022 and 63,280 visitors (-2.4%) in April 2019.

Maui data for the first four months of 2023 includes the following:

• In the first four months of 2023, there were 969,214 visitors to Maui, compared to 870,445 visitors (+11.3%) in the first four months of 2022 and 974,943 visitors (-0.6%) in the first four months of 2019.
• For the first four months of 2023, total visitor spending was $2.33 billion, compared to $1.78 billion (+30.7%) in the first four months of 2022 and $1.73 billion (+34.7%) in the first four months of 2019.

Statewide, a total of 827,537 visitors arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in April 2023, an increase of 1.1% from April 2022. When compared to 2019, the benchmark year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this represents a 97.4% recovery in total visitor arrivals from April 2019 and is the highest recovery rate so far since the beginning of the pandemic, according to DBEDT.

As measured in nominal dollars, these visitors spent $1.72 billion in April 2023, which was higher than $1.60 billion (+8.0%) in April 2022 and $1.32 billion (+30.7%) in April 2019. 

DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka said April marked the 24^th consecutive month where visitor arrivals from the US mainland exceeded 2019 monthly levels for those respective months. April US visitor arrivals were 19% higher than the same month in 2019.

“It is encouraging to see the cruise market continue its recovery as the 21,328 visitors that came by cruise ships marked the second-highest count since the start of the pandemic,” said Tokioka.

According to Tokioka, it will take a while for the international visitor arrivals to recover to pre-pandemic levels. “The recovery of international markets this April was at 55.8% and Japanese arrivals were at 28.8% of the April 2019 levels. Visitor expenditures, as measured by nominal dollars, were 21.7% higher compared with the same period in 2019.  After adjusting for inflation, real visitor spending was higher than the pre-pandemic level,” he said.

DBEDT report that in April 2023, a total of 5,014 trans-Pacific flights with 1,085,186 seats serviced the Hawaiian Islands, down from 5,171 flights (-3.0%) with 1,085,948 seats (-0.1%) in April 2022, and 5,031 flights (-0.3%) with 1,112,200 seats (-2.4%) in April 2019.