The latest visitors satisfaction report from the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) shows Aloha State visitors from most regions are highly likely to recommend the destination to others, but some markets lag well behind others in overall satisfaction.
The HTA recently released visitor satisfaction and activity data for the first two quarters of 2018, compiled by the Tourism Research Division using exit surveys and broken down into eight major global markets: U.S. West, U.S. East, Japan, Canada, Europe, Oceania, China and Korea.
For the first time, the HTA included island-specific questions on the questionnaire in 2018 in order to get more specific data on the various islands and their attractions.
Visitors from Asia tend to be younger than from other regions, with the average age of visitors from Japan, China and Korea under 40 years old, while the average age for Hawaii visitors from Oceania, Canada, Europe and the U.S. is over 45 years old.
The regions that typically send older travelers to the islands also demonstrate higher satisfaction rates. The percentage of survey participants from Europe, the U.S., Oceania and Canada who said they are "very likely to recommend" the destination to others was above 80% for each region, with Canadians topping the list at 90%. Meanwhile, the percentage of survey respondents from Japan, Korea and China who said the same were all below 80%, with Korea at the bottom registering 60% of travelers who were very likely to recommend the state. The top reasons Korean visitors gave for dissatisfaction were related to the cost and perceived value and the length of the flight. Among all regions, cost tends to be one of the top two reasons given for visitors who say they are less likely to make a return visit.
In many areas, satisfaction rates are relatively stable year over year, but Kauai experienced nearly universal drops in the percentage of visitors rating their stay as "excellent" when comparing 2018's second quarter to the same period in 2017. Notably, the second quarter included April's record rainstorms and damaging floods that hit Kauai's north shore, limiting activities and accommodations in picturesque Hanalei and cutting off road access to Napali state park completely. While the satisfaction rates on Hawaii Island were stable year over year for Q2, the volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that led to a four-month shutdown of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park came at the end of the second quarter and showed the greatest tourism impact in the second half of 2018, for which data is not yet available. Notably, visitors from China, Korea and Japan to Oahu, where there were no such natural disasters or similar disruptions in the second quarter, also all reported lower satisfaction rates, with each region's percentage of "excellent" ratings falling by a minimum of 4%.
In other areas of note, Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, which state officials and tourism stakeholders routinely say is in need of improvements, received scores of "excellent" or "above average" from 90% of travelers from almost every region, with the other 10% choosing "below average" or "poor." Travelers from Oceania and Korea, however, were less pleased with the airport compared to the other regions, with roughly 20% of those travelers listing Hawaii's largest airport as poor or below average. For the U.S. market, the most popular activities for Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii Island are Pearl Harbor, Waimea Canyon, Haleakala National Park and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park respectively.
The survey also reveals that visitors who made stops on multiple islands during their most recent stay tended to register higher mean satisfaction scores. Additionally, Hawaii travelers who worked with a travel agent in planning their trip also were more likely to mark higher scores.