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Hawaii has new reason to bask in the sun
Visitors to Hawaii last year rebounded to their highest level since 2007, according to tourism officials.
State estimates being show the number of visitors to Hawaii rose 3.8 percent to 7.28 million from 7.02 million in 2010, amid increases in most of the islands’ major markets.
"A 2.3 percent increase in visitors from the US, along with double-digit percentage gains from markets such as Canada and Australia, helped offset a 5 percent decline in visitors from Japan, which suffered a devastating earthquake and tsunami last March," according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
Officials cited several factors, including more Americans bypassing Mexico partly because of its drug violence reputation, and a fall in Japanese visitors that wasn’t as steep as expected.
"Meanwhile, a weakened dollar is enticing more visitors from countries like Australia," says the Authority.
"The outlook is very optimistic, very bright," said Mufi Hannemann, president and chief executive of the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association and former mayor of Honolulu. "It’s like our weather, very sunny."
Tourism took a dive after a series of calamitous events in 2008.
Hawaii lost 15 percent of its airline seats after two carriers pulled out that year, said David Uchiyama, a vice president of the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Two of three cruise ships that had plied Hawaii’s waters also ceased operating here, he said. Then came the financial crisis that October.
The number of visitors, which peaked at 7.63 million in 2006, fell 16 percent to 6.4 million in 2009.
By David Wilkening
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