US (HAWAII). Japanese visitor arrivals to Hawaii rose by +2.5% year-on-year in February to 95,141, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, while total arrivals rose by +0.7% to 531,094.
However Japanese spending was soft. Per person per trip spending fell by -13.7% to US$1,479.70, while the per person per day indicator was off by -14.2% to US$258.50. Those declines drove an -11.6% year-on-year decline in total spending by Japanese to US$140.8 million for the month.
Much of the growth in Japanese arrivals continued to be from lower-spending non-package visitors and free independent travellers (FIT), a category which jumped +29.7% from last February. This was the eighth consecutive month of strong growth since July 2009 for this sector.
That is having a direct impact on the volume and nature of the Japanese spend. For the first two months of 2010, total spending by Japanese visitors fell -14.5% to US$273.5 million. Average daily spending was US$260 per person, down -14.7% from US$305 per person in the first two months of 2009.
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Total visitor days were stable (+0.3%) while Japanese visitor arrivals increased by +1.0% from the first two months of 2009.
Among the major islands, Maui saw a +7.2% growth in visitor arrivals for February – only the second consecutive month of positive growth in arrivals to the island since December 2005. The heavier visitor traffic was underpinned by new direct routes and increased direct flights into Kahului Airport.
Among the top four visitor markets, losses in arrivals by air from US West (-2.6%) and US East (-8.2%) were offset by growth from Japan (+2.5%, as mentioned) and Canada (+16.2%) compared to February 2009.
