DBEDT: Maui visitor arrivals lag in May; officials expect ‘soft summer’ for tourism

The island of Maui recently experienced its slowest tourism month of the year, with 195,784 visitors flying to the island in May, according to preliminary data from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

Maui still continued to see a higher number of tourists than it had last May, as the community soon approaches the second anniversary of the 2023 Maui wildfires.

Twenty-one months after the fires, Maui’s visitor count was 9.2% higher than it was in May 2024. Through the first five months of 2025, visitor arrivals to the Valley Isle were up nearly 13%, breaking the one million visitor mark one month earlier than it had last year.

Spending has also increased. Tourists spent 8.4% more on Maui in May 2025 compared to the same month last year. Total visitor spending from January through May rose 11.3% over the same period in 2024. These figures are not adjusted for inflation, which rose 2.4% between May 2024 and May 2025.

However, when compared to pre-pandemic levels, the gap remains wide. Visitor arrivals to Maui were down more than 22% from May 2019, when 251,665 people visited the island. Year-to-date totals for 2025 also lag behind 2019 by about 15%.

While May is traditionally a slower tourism month in Hawaiʻi, state officials say that trend is likely to extend into the summer.

In a statement on June 30, DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka said air service from the US mainland, Japan, and Canada is expected to decline in the coming months.

“Combined with political and economic uncertainties, both nationally and globally, we are expecting to see a soft summer,” Tokioka said. “We have been hearing from our partners that the average booking window for a trip to Hawai‘i is about 120 days, however, they are still seeing bookings in the month for the month.”

Statewide visitor trends

Across the Hawaiian Islands, overall visitor numbers and spending saw modest growth in May 2025, according to DBEDT’s preliminary data.

A total of 771,038 visitors came to the state in May, a 1% increase compared to May 2024. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, arrivals represented a 91% recovery of May 2019 totals.

Most travelers — 766,377 — arrived by air, with the largest numbers coming from the US West and US East markets. An additional 4,661 visitors arrived via out-of-state cruise ships. While air arrivals ticked up slightly from May 2024, cruise passenger numbers declined by 14% year-over-year.

The statewide average daily census — the number of visitors in Hawai‘i on any given day — was 210,695, a 0.5% increase over last May but still nearly 8% below the average for May 2019.

The US West remained the state’s largest market, sending 411,318 visitors to Hawai‘i in May. That figure marked a 1.8% increase over May 2024 and a 6.1% rise compared to May 2019. Spending from this group grew even faster, climbing to $831.1 million — up 8.2% from last year and a striking 47.4% increase over May 2019. Daily spending reached $248 per person.

From the US East, 207,445 visitors traveled to Hawai‘i in May, a slight drop from May 2024 but still up 4.1% from May 2019. Spending from this market held steady at $540.5 million, with daily per-person spending reaching $279 — up from both last year and pre-pandemic levels.

International travel, however, remained well below pre-pandemic norms.

Japan sent 45,895 visitors to Hawai‘i in May, a 0.5% decrease from 2024 and a 59.5% drop from May 2019. Spending also fell slightly year-over-year to $67.1 million, though per-person daily spending remained stable at $244.

Canadian arrivals declined 8% from May 2024 to 18,672 visitors. Spending dropped to $40 million — down 10% from last year and 17% from 2019 — though average daily spending rose nearly 30% compared to pre-pandemic rates.

Visitors from all other international markets, including Oceania, Europe and Asia outside Japan, totaled 83,047 in May, an increase from last year but still 24% below May 2019 levels.

Air capacity to the Hawaiian Islands also showed a slight decline. There were 4,771 transpacific flights serving Hawai‘i in May 2025, virtually unchanged from last year, but with a 1% drop in total available seats. Compared to May 2019, flights were down 6.2% and available seats fell by 5.2%.

For the year so far, Hawai‘i has welcomed more than 4 million visitors — a 2.8% increase over the first five months of 2024. However, total arrivals remain nearly 4% below the pace set in 2019.