Another record-breaking tourist year in the making

With one month left to report, all signs point to more visitors, spending

Hurricane threats and a tropical storm traversing Maui do not appear to have affected the county's march to another record-breaking year in tourism arrivals and spending, based on Hawaii Tourism Authority data through November released Thursday.

With only a month of data to report, Maui was 7 percent ahead in visitor arrivals compared to 2017, which was a record-breaking year. There were 2,658,827 arrivals by air through the first 11 months of this year, compared to 2,486,549 in 2017, more than 170,000 more visitors.

To break the annual record of 2,742,108 visitors by air for a fourth straight year, only 83,281 visitors would have to arrive on Maui this month. This seems likely, given that 225,178 tourists, up 4.1 percent, visited the island in November, and December shows no signs of falling off.

The threat of Hurricane Lane, which veered away as it neared the islands, and Tropical Storm Olivia, which blew over the West Maui Mountains and Lanai, drew national attention and raised concerns about their impact on tourism in the county. Tropical storm force winds from Lane whipped up a brush fire Aug. 24 that burned 1,500 acres in West Maui, a few miles from the Kaanapali Resort, and damaged or destroyed more than 20 structures.

A couple of weeks later, heavy rain from Olivia on Sept. 12 caused flooding that washed away homes and flooded and damaged roads and caused power outages.

Disasters can have an impact on tourism, as evidenced by Hawaii island, where volcanic activity earlier this year wiped out whole communities. Hawaii was the only county to be off of last year's tourism pace, down 1.7 percent for the first 11 months to 1,559,779.

Maui also is on pace for a seventh consecutive record-breaking year in visitor spending after the first 11 months. Visitor spending was up 10 percent to $4.6 billion, a mere $200,000 from 2017's record of $4.8 billion.

Visitor arrivals and spending for January to November were up for Lanai and Molokai as well. Arrivals on Lanai were up 18 percent to 67,892 with spending up 11 percent to $98.6 million. Molokai recorded a 3 percent increase to 54,130 arrivals; spending was up 29 percent to $37 million.

For November, Maui's visitor spending rose 1.7 percent to $364.6 million compared to a year ago. Visitor days increased by 5 percent, but daily spending fell 3.1 percent to $198 per person.

Maui's visitor arrival increase was driven by growth in the island's top market, the U.S. West, and the second largest market, U.S. East, both up 6 percent to 121,638 and 54,419, respectively.

Visitor declines were logged from Japan, down 1 percent to 4,006, and Canada, down 1 percent to 27,033.

Cruise ship visitors for November were up 6 percent to 19,330, but totals for the first 11 months were down 2 percent to 210,120.

There was an average of 61,378 visitors on Maui each day in November. Combined with the resident population, there were more than 220,000 people on the island each day last month.

Statewide, visitor spending for November was flat at $1.29 billion. Visitor arrivals were up for the month 4 percent to 781,990.

The statistics can be found at www.hawaiitourismauthority.org/research/monthly-visitor-statistics/.

* Lee Imada can be reached at leeimada@mauinews.com.