As Hawaii marks the 75th anniversary of its in-flight visitor survey — a cornerstone of tourism data collection — state officials are grappling with an eight-month disruption in tracking visitor trends.
The breakdown began March 1, when the state launched the Akamai Arrival pilot program to digitize agricultural declaration forms. Optional tourism questions, embedded in the paper forms, were removed. Although the pilot ended May 31, the state has yet to fully implement a digital replacement, leaving a critical data gap.
At its annual conference, the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority announced plans to restore the survey via a new GoHawaii app, which will eventually integrate both agriculture declarations and tourism questions. However, the app remains in procurement, with a rollout expected early next year.
In the meantime, HTA and the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism are using a patchwork of data sources — including remaining paper forms, the Akamai Arrival system, the Island Departure Survey, and prior survey data — to fill the gap.
HTA and DBEDT officials said in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Friday, “In the initial months of the Akamai Arrival pilot program, DBEDT combined scanned tourism survey data for airline city routes and applied those surveys to the total. When this was not possible, DBEDT utilized survey data from prior periods for these flights.
“When the Akamai Arrival participation increased significantly in September, we switched to a methodology that uses scanned data from the paper survey, Akamai Arrival data and Island Departure Survey data.”
But officials acknowledge that these sources can’t fully replace the lost data
“None of the tourism questions included on the paper Agriculture forms, nor those in the future digitized survey, can be extracted from the daily passenger counts, flight summaries and departure surveys, except for the number in party and home zip code/country,” they said.
Economist Paul Brewbaker criticized the state’s handling of the transition, calling the data disruption a “permanent gap year in economic time series continuity.”
“You can’t just swap out one method for another — you are not going to get the same information.You can’t mix and match the data,” Brewbaker said. “I’m hearing that we have completely changed the fillers. It’s like going from Portuguese sausage to vegan sausage.”
He said that the data gathered since February is no longer comparable to the previous 75 years.
“All these statements they are making about, ‘spending is up, and the visitor count is down, woohoo! ’ does not have a firm statistical or econometric foundation,” Brewbaker said.
He faulted the Department of Agriculture for implementing Akamai Arrival without consulting HTA, DBEDT, or tourism data users. Brewbaker, who advised on a similar transition in 1988, said the state failed to run parallel systems — a critical step given the volatility of visitor behavior.
“This lack of coordination has irrevocably compromised the state’s tourism data,” he said, warning that the industry is now relying on less comprehensive metrics to gauge performance.
HTA and DBEDT officials defended the Akamai Arrival program as a step toward sustainability and modernization, aimed at reducing paper use and improving the visitor experience. New features on the GoHawaii app will include safety alerts, the ability to make reservations through county and state park systems, and the management of visitor movement.
Cost savings were not the primary driver for moving to a digital form. The state’s 2023 In-Flight Form Digitization Feasibility Study found that printing paper forms cost about $615,000 annually, while digital surveys could range from $475,000 to $1.8 million depending on infrastructure and support.
Despite the challenges, DBEDT and HTA officials said its partnerships with the state Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration and others ensure that it has accurate arrival data. At the same time, they said visitor surveys provide information about how long people stay and where.
Officials emphasized that accurate visitor data remains essential for planning hotel staffing, emergency response, and other services.
But Brewbaker warned that the current data downgrade undermines understanding of an industry that contributes roughly 17% to Hawaii’s economy.
Source: The Garden Island
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