Big Island tourism in April continued to trend below last year with visitor spending and arrivals down drastically.
Big Island tourism in April continued to trend below last year with visitor spending and arrivals down drastically.
While visitor spending was down on every island last month, Big Island spending dropped from $194 million in April of last year to $154 million this year, a decrease of 20%.
Similarly, total visitors dropped by 14 percent last month, from 153,000 to 131,000. However, visitors to Lanai and Molokai saw greater drops, by 17 and 24%, respectively.
As usual, the decline can be attributed to lingering aftereffects of last year’s Kilauea eruption on the tourism industry. Ross Birch, Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau executive director, had previously said tourism rates have dropped to levels comparable to those in 2017.
Sure enough, Big Island visitor arrivals are only slightly below the April 2017 rate of 137,000. However, spending is still significantly below 2017, when visitors spent $177 million.
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