Rental cars are lined up in a field near Kahului Airport on Saturday morning. While Maui has seen fewer visitors in late spring and early summer compared to last year, visitor spending is well outpacing 2022 and 2019 levels, especially on the Neighbor Islands, according to a recent report. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Visitors to Hawaii spent $2 billion in June — more than any other month during the record-breaking year before the pandemic — with nearly three-quarters of that total coming from tourists on Maui and Oahu.

Maui visitors shelled out $619.4 million in June, topping June 2019 spending levels by 29.8 percent, while Oahu visitors spent $848.9 million, beating out June 2019 spending by 15 percent, according to a report released Thursday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

By comparison, Hawaii island visitors spent $263.4 million in June, up 28 percent from June 2019, while visitors to Kauai spent $251.4 million, an increase of 28.2 percent over June 2019.

State tourism and economic officials have been using 2019 as a barometer for the recovery of the visitor industry — it was the last “normal” year before the pandemic and a record-setting stretch when Hawaii surpassed 10 million visitors and Maui topped 3 million visitors, both for the first time.

While none of the islands are matching the levels of visitors they saw in 2019, spending is far outpacing that record year, particularly on Neighbor Islands.

Through the first six months of the year, visitors to Maui have spent $3.47 billion, up 24.6 percent from the first half of 2022 and up 33.2 percent from the first half of 2019. On Hawaii island, the $1.43 billion visitors spent through the first six months of 2023 was 11.8 percent more than the first half of 2022 and 24.2 percent more than the first half of 2019. The trend was the same on Kauai, where visitor spending of $1.33 billion through the first six months of this year was up 26.2 percent from the first half of 2022 and up 38.1 percent from the first half of 2019.

While Oahu is also seeing higher spending, it’s not eclipsing 2019 levels at the same pace as Neighbor Islands. Visitors to Oahu spent $4.41 billion through the first half of 2023, up 10.1 percent from the first half of 2022 and up 9.5 percent from the first half of 2019.

The difference between islands is partly due to hotel rates — Maui County hotels led the state in average daily rates in June, and Oahu had the lowest daily rates among the four counties.

“With the accelerated recovery of international visitors, Oahu experienced the highest increase in visitor arrivals for the first half of 2023, and neighbor islands experienced higher increases in visitor expenditures mainly due to their higher room rates,” DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka said in a news release Thursday.

Tokioka added that “June visitor statistics indicate that our visitor industry continues a steady recovery. The total visitor arrivals of 889,274 in June 2023 was the third-highest June in our history.” It also represented a 93.9 percent recovery in total visitor arrivals from June 2019.

Oahu, as usual, saw the most visitors with 437,769 in June, an increase of 14.6 percent from June 2022 but a decrease of 10.9 percent compared to June 2019.

Maui saw the second-most visitor arrivals in June with 276,136, down 4.2 percent from June 2022 and down 6.7 percent from June 2019.

Hawaii island had 158,739 visitors in June, up 0.8 percent from June 2022 but down 3 percent from June 2019.

Kauai totaled 129,905 visitor arrivals in June, a decline of 2.7 percent from June 2022 and down 3.6 percent from June 2019.

U.S. visitors continue to make up the bulk of Hawaii’s tourism market, especially as international travel to Hawaii recovers at a slower pace in the wake of the pandemic. In June, 734,669 visitor arrivals were from the Mainland, mainly from the West Coast. Another 46,753 visitors came from Japan, while 19,237 came from Canada and 85,379 visitors arrived from other international markets.

Japanese arrivals in June were the highest since March 2020 and represented a 36.9 percent recovery from the same month in 2019, Tokioka said. DBEDT is forecasting that Japanese arrivals will recover to about 50 percent of the 2019 level by the end of this year.

Tokioka added that the 80,000 visitor arrivals by cruise ship through the first half of 2023 marked the third-highest first-half year figure since the state began recording cruise ship visitors in January 1999.

Late spring and early summer travel has been slower this year on Maui compared to last year. The island has seen fewer visitors in April, May and June than during the same months in 2022, and hotel occupancy in all three months was lower than the same time last year. However, after a white-hot winter travel period that well surpassed last year’s numbers, Maui’s total visitors through the first half of the year reached nearly 1.49 million, up 5.7 percent from the nearly 1.41 million visitors seen in the first half of 2022.

* Managing Editor Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.