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Over 550K visitors arrived in the islands in October, still far below pre-pandemic levels

Wayne Yoshioka

More visitors came to Hawaiʻi last month than in September – but the figures were still far below pre-pandemic levels.

More than 550,000 visitors arrived in the islands last month, spending a total of $1.12 billion, according to the latest report from the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority on visitor arrivals and spending for October.

Both categories are up compared to September but are well below October 2019.

When compared to the same month before the pandemic, visitor arrivals were down nearly 31%, and spending – 15%.

In late August, Gov. David Ige urged residents and visitors to postpone any travel plans due to the Delta variant surge.

Although leisure travel to the islands didn’t stop, industry professionals say the announcement had an impact.

On average, there were 164,000 visitors in the state on any given day last month.

A majority of visitors came from the western United States – at 364,000. And nearly 160,000 visitors from the eastern US arrived in the islands.

Meanwhile, 2,100 Japanese visitors and more than 9,000 Canadians came to the islands last month.

So far, a total of 5.4 million visitors have come to the state this year, spending more than $10 billion.

That means visitors are down 30% – and spending is down 37% compared to the first 10 months of 2019.

Casey Harlow was an HPR reporter and occasionally filled in as local host of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
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