Maui visitor arrivals down in January 2024; spending is up from 2019

The tourism industry continued to show weakness in January 2024 with visitor arrivals down on Maui from both year before and 2019 levels.

“Locally, the Maui wildfires continued to impact visitors to Maui six months after the tragedy,” said Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) Director James Kunane Tokioka. “Maui’s visitor counts decreased by 23.5% compared to January 2023, although there has been progress from August 2023 when visitor arrivals were down by 57.8%. With the active recovery efforts and campaigns, we hope to see continuous improvements over the upcoming months,” he said.

Maui data for January 2024 includes the following:

• There were 175,005 visitors to Maui in January 2024, compared to 228,743 visitors (-23.5%) in January 2023 and 233,422 visitors (-25.0%) in January 2019, according to DBEDT preliminary statistics.
• Visitor spending on Maui was $503.8 million in January 2024, lower than in January 2023 ($625.2 million, -19.4%), but higher than in January 2019 ($474.2 million, +6.2%).
• The average daily census on Maui was 53,377 visitors in January 2024, compared to 67,892 visitors (-21.4%) in January 2023 and 69,854 visitors (-23.6%) in January 2019.

Tokioka said there were incidents in January 2024 which affected Hawaiʻi’s tourism recovery. “The tragic accident at Haneda Airport in Japan and the grounding of Boeing 737-9 Max airplanes resulted in flight cancellations and reduced visitor arrivals. Cruise numbers continued to be strong in January 2024 with a 7.1% increase in cruise visitors. The cruise market has fully recovered since last year as compared with the numbers in 2019.”

Statewide visitor DBEDT data includes the following:

• Total visitor arrivals to the Hawaiian Islands in January 2024 was (763,480 visitors, -3.6%).
• Total visitor spending measured in nominal dollars ($1.81 billion, -4.5%) declined compared to January 2023

Since the August 2023 Maui wildfires, total visitor arrivals were down in five out of the last six months while total visitor spending recorded six consecutive months of decreases from 2023. When compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels, January 2024 total visitor arrivals represent a 93.4% recovery from January 2019 and total visitor spending was higher than January 2019 ($1.62 billion, +11.9%), according to the report.

In January 2024, 745,644 visitors arrived by air service, mainly from the US West and US East. Additionally, 17,836 visitors came via out-of-state cruise ships. In comparison, 775,132 visitors (-3.8%) arrived by air and 16,648 visitors (+7.1%) came by cruise ships in January 2023, and 805,567 visitors (-7.4%) arrived by air and 12,033 visitors (+48.2%) came by cruise ships in January 2019.

The average length of stay by all visitors in January 2024 was 9.85 days, compared to 10.16 days (-3.0%) in January 2023 and 9.94 days (-0.9%) in January 2019. The statewide average daily census was 242,700 visitors in January 2024, compared to 259,514 visitors (-6.5%) in January 2023 and 262,235 visitors (-7.4%) in January 2019.

There were 52,911 visitors from Japan in January 2024, which was up significantly compared to January 2023 (32,305 visitors, +63.8%), but still much lower than January 2019 (120,418 visitors, -56.1%), according to the report. Visitors from Japan spent $78.8 million in January 2024, compared to $58.1 million (+35.6%) in January 2023 and $173.4 million (-54.5%) in January 2019. Daily spending by visitors from Japan in January 2024 ($240 per person) was more than in January 2023 ($237 per person, +1.1%) and was similar to January 2019 ($240 per person, 0.0%).

In January 2024, a total of 4,884 transpacific flights with 1,100,758 seats serviced the Hawaiian Islands, down from 5,211 flights (-6.3%) with 1,156,026 seats (-4.8%) in January 2024 and 5,158 flights (-5.3%) with 1,134,182 seats (-2.9%) in January 2019, according to DBEDT.