Hawaii visitors set another all-time expenditures mark in January, spending a total of $1.35 billion and eclipsing the destination’s previous one-month peak of $1.29 billion set in December.
Total expenditures were up nearly 14% year over year in January, and arrivals climbed 7.7% during the month, to 643,616 visitors, according to preliminary statistics released by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) in late February.
“The momentum of 2011 continued into January 2012 for a strong start to the new year,” Mike McCartney, the HTA’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “A strong holiday season, combined with pent-up demand for travel to the Hawaiian Islands, increases in airlift and a large delegation of convention attendees were all contributing factors to the increases seen in January.”
The number of visitors traveling to the state for meetings, conventions and incentives jumped 25% from last January while average daily spending per person climbed nearly $10 year over year, to $192 a day.
Among the destination’s four largest source markets, arrivals from the U.S. West were up 3.3%, and those from the U.S. East climbed 4.1%. Travelers from Japan increased 3.9%, and the number of Canadian visitors rose by 9%.
Hawaii also saw cruise arrivals surge 22.7% in January, to 13,764 visitors.
According to the HTA, travelers spent $12.58 billion across the Aloha State in 2011, an increase of 15.6% year over year and second-largest sum in the destination’s history.