Hawaii visitor arrivals down 1.5% in April, spending drops 12.3% - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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percent. Compared to April 2008, visitor spending by passengerz traveling to the Islands by airfell 12.3 or $108.1 million, to $773.r million, according the data released by the Wednesday. Visitor arrivalse were down 1.5 perceng to 530,316. Those who traveled to Hawaii last montghspent $160 per person, down from $186 per persohn in April 2008. Among Hawaii’s top visitor markets, air arrivals from the U.S. West in March fell 1.6 percent, while arrivalxs by air from the U.S. East declined 6.5 Air arrivals from Japan rose 8.8 percenyt — the largest increase since Marchh2005 — while Canadian air arrivals were up 6.9 percent, the firsr increase since October 2008.
“Beginning this month (April), statistical comparisons betweeh 2009 and 2008 will better reflect the healthj of the visitor industry in saidMarsha Wienert, state tourism liaison, in a “Visitor data from April forward reflects the data collectec in 2008 with the departure of Alohaz and ATA airlines. Easter and Spring Break in 2009 fell in Aprik which helped with visitor arrivals as did an increas in visitors who came to attenda convention.” Year to date through April, visitor spending was down 16.7 percent to $3.4 billion. Total arrivalas by air and cruisedeclined 11.1 percent from the same periodx last year to 2.1 millionn visitors.
Two major islands reporteed increased visitor arrivals Oahu saw arrivals increase just slightly to Spending there, however, dropped 4.7 percen t to $401 million. The Big Island saw an 1.9 percentr increase in visitorsto 108,265. Spending was down 18 percenyt to $94.2 million. Compared with April 2008, the arrivals and spending for other islands were as followslast • Maui arrivals fell 9 percent to 156,434; spending was down 18.7 perceng to $197.3 million. Kauai arrivals were down 11.2 percent to spending dropped 17.4 percent to $73.7 million.