Maui and the state overall continued to enjoy healthy gains in the tourism sector last month.
Maui saw the largest increase in daily spending per visitor last month compared to the other main Hawaiian Islands, according to data released Wednesday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
Daily visitor spending on Maui jumped 14.6 percent over last year to $191. Oahu saw the next highest boost, with an 11 percent increase in daily spending in July to $207.
Maui's higher daily spending helped boost total visitor spending on the island by 15 percent to $314.4 million in July. That brings visitor spending on Maui to $2.2 billion year to date through July - a 21.4 percent increase over the same time frame in 2011.
The increased spending was in spite of a relatively small boost in the number of visitor arrivals in July.
Maui saw a total of 212,659 visitors in July, representing a 1.8 percent increase over last year.
For the first seven months of the year, Maui saw a total of 1.36 million visitors, of which, 6 out of 10 stayed exclusively on Maui, the Hawaii Tourism Authority said.
Other Maui highlights:
* Air seats for Kahului increased by 9 percent in July.
* Maui saw an increase in arrivals from Japan - up 12.7 percent in July - and the West Coast - up 3 percent - last month.
* Maui saw a drop in arrivals from the East Coast and Canada, each down about 3.5 percent in July.
The state as a whole saw 720,355 visitors in July, up almost 8 percent over last July.
Meanwhile, total visitor spending in Hawaii came to $1.3 billion last month, an increase of nearly 18 percent.
Year to date through July, arrivals in the islands increased nearly 10 percent to 4.7 million visitors, and total expenditures increased nearly 21 percent to $8.4 billion.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority said the healthy numbers have the state "on pace for a record year."
"We anticipate that the momentum from the positive increase in visitor arrivals and spending will continue through the second half of the year," Mike McCartney, president and chief executive officer of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, said in a statement. "Year-to-date visitor spending has generated an estimated $915 million in state tax revenues and will help to sustain more than 160,000 Hawaii jobs in 2012."
* Nanea Kalani can be reached at nkalani@mauinews.com.
