Maui saw nearly 60% fewer visitors last month compared to August 2022, which the state has attributed to the island’s recent fires and the government’s calls to visitors to stay away.
The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism recently published the findings in its monthly visitor statistics report.
The findings put a number on what has been known — the Maui fires caused a steep drop in tourism.
It was the slowest month for tourism on Maui since February 2021.
The other counties experienced a growth in visitor arrivals during the same period, but as a whole the state saw a 7% drop in visitors.
Comparing last month to August of last year, there were 11% more visitors on Oʻahu; 9% on Kauaʻi; and 4% on Hawaiʻi island.
Overall, the state had 7% fewer visitors this year. Nearly 770,000 visitors came to the Hawaiian Islands in August.
DBEDT said the government’s call for tourists to stay out of West Maui immediately after the August fires may have affected travel to the rest of the state.
There was a 16% drop in visitors from the U.S. and a 20% drop from Canada.
But some markets are on a positive swing. The number of visitors from Japan last month doubled that of August last year, but it’s still a 60% drop from before the COVID-19 pandemic.
There was also a 20% increase in visitors from all other international markets.
Visitor spending dropped about 9% over the same period. It was $1.58 billion in August of this year and $1.74 billion in August last year.
DBEDT is also tracking the tourism industry’s recovery following the pandemic. This year’s visitor numbers represent 83% of the visitor numbers in August 2019.
