Hawaii Visitor Spending Down 12.3 percent for April

Visitor arrivals to the Hawaiian islands dropped slightly in the month of April, but visitor spending fell by a big 12.3 percent compared to April of 2008.

According to the Hawaiian Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, the 12.3 percent equates to $108.1 million in less spending than last year for a total of $773.4 in overall spending. Each Hawaiian traveler spent approximately $160 per person, down from $186 per person a year ago.

In regards to Maui, the island saw its visitor numbers drop 9 percent and visitor spending came down 18.7 percent to $197.3 million.

What these figure show is that people are still willing to travel to our islands. Yes, there is a drop in visitors, but that is to be expected in this down economy. However, what is more telling and disappointing is the lack of spending being made outside of visitors’ air travel and accomodations–and I am unsure how we can reverse this course.

One obvious answer is for businesses to lower their fees and offer discounts. However, I know plenty of businesses who are offering discounts on anything from snorkeling tours to free deserts at restaurants. Are the tourists not aware of these steep discounts or are they aware but still choosing not to spend?

I am unsure if we will ever know the answer unless a direct survey is introduced. But, I do believe that businesses need to be aware of these numbers because they are not getting any brighter as the year progresses. What our businesses need to make sure of is that they make themselves more known to the travelers, particularly if they have coupons or discounts to offer. I would hate to see even one tourist not book or spend because they didn’t know about a discount.

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Tags: hawaii, Lahaina, Maui, Maui Coupons, Maui Discounts

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Lahaina, Local News, Maui. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.