(TAN): Both visitor arrivals and spending in the American state of Hawaii crashed over 50% in March compared to the same period last year owing to a general drop in travel demand and imposition of travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
According to data from the Hawaii Tourism Authority, visitor arrivals by air plunged 53.6% to 430,691 in March 2020 in comparison to 927,246 in March 2019. Of the total arrivals by air, domestic arrivals dropped 48.7% year-on-year while nearly 65% less international tourists arrived in the state during the month compared to a year ago.
Arrivals by air from Japan went down 66.1%, while that from Canada dipped 65%. The United States West and East markets sent 49.7% and 45.9% fewer tourists by air respectively, and air arrivals from all other international markets decreased 60.6%.
The dramatic decline was triggered by flight cancellations to the islands which began in February, first affecting the China market. By March, most of the flights to Hawaii were cancelled, bringing down the traffic even further.
Most cruise lines suspended services of their own accord in the United States waters on March 13, which affected tourist numbers arriving to the state by cruise – visitor traffic from cruise ships decreased 64.8% to 4,165 in March vis-à-vis the earlier year.
While Hawaii Governor David Ige asked future visitors to defer their trips by at least a month on March 17, the counties had also started urging people to stay at home. Everyone arriving from outside of Hawaii were instructed to self-quarantine themselves for 14 days on March 26, leading to a 49.7% drop in total visitor days compared to a year ago.
As a result of these restrictions, visitor spending also went down 52.2% in March versus the same period a year back. Visitors spent a total of USD 720.2 million, with the United States West market spending the biggest portion among all the markets – although tourists from the market spent USD 316.8 million in Hawaii, spending went down 45.2% year-on-year. The United States East contributed USD 230.5 million, Japan USD 67.5 million, Canada USD 56.5 million, and all other overseas markets USD 47.5 million.
Considerable declines in March “entirely offset positive results in January and February” and led to losses in visitor spending and arrivals for the first quarter of 2020.
Total visitor arrivals in the first quarter dipped 16.4% to 2,125,486 as a result of fewer arrivals by air and cruise ships from a year-ago period – while arrivals by air went down 16.3%, those by cruise ships dropped 24.8%.
In the first quarter of 2020, visitor spending declined 14.1% to USD 3.89 billion compared to the first quarter of 2019.
The United States has reported 1,158,041 cases of infection, while
Hawaii has 620 cases including 17 deaths, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.
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