Hawaii tourism is cooling off this summer, and the visitor industry is concerned that the sector will continue to lose heat throughout this year and into 2026.
Arrivals to Hawaii in June decreased to 857,102, a 1.8% drop from the same month last year, according to preliminary numbers released Thursday by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. The state department reported that June visitor spending rose to nearly $1.97 billion, a 2.8% gain in nominal visitor spending.
James Tokioka, DBEDT director, said in a statement, “We are encouraged to see continued growth in visitor spending in June 2025. However, like many destinations, Hawaii is also experiencing a slowdown in visitor traffic. Fewer visitors from U.S. East and continued declines from Canada and other international markets offset a modest growth in U.S. West arrivals.”
DBEDT reported that arrivals from Hawaii’s largest visitor source market, the U.S. West, grew just 0.8 % in June, while arrivals from Hawaii’s second-largest source market, the U.S. East, fell 3.8%. Arrivals from Japan, Hawaii’s largest international market, dropped 4.3% in June from June 2024 and arrivals from Canada, Hawaii’s second-largest international market, declined 12.3%. Arrivals from all other international markets outside of Japan and Canada fell by 8.6%
The numbers prove that visitor industry leaders were right to anticipate a summer slowdown, and give credence to their concerns that the softness will linger to the end of the year and beyond. The planned shutdown of the Hawai‘i Convention Center for at least 2026 and 2027 to complete $100 million worth of repairs will cause the loss of millions of dollars in group bookings and reduce the compression that leads to increased occupancy and increased pricing power for all Hawaii hotels.
Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance, said the booking pace was very short in June and some hotels managed to catch up with occupancy, but the average daily room rate was off about 18% from what hoteliers had budgeted across the islands.
“People did come from California, but at a much lower rate than we would normally get,” Gibson said. “We are fortunate to have a lot of kamaaina businesses on top of what we normally have.”
Results were mixed across the islands, with visitor arrivals on Oahu, Hawaii’s busiest visitor market, dropping 3.9% from June 2o24. Hawaii island’s arrivals fell 1.6%, and they dropped 13.6% on Molokai and 37.5% on Lanai.
Arrivals to Kauai rose 3.5% and arrivals to Maui grew 5%; however, most of Maui’s gains were about recovering from the lingering effects of the devastating Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires.
Gibson said July is doing a bit better than June in terms of rates; however, August is way off.
“We aren’t keeping pace with inflation and that means that hotels will not make their proposed budgets for the year,” he said. “It may mean a slowdown in capital projects, which makes it harder to compete when other destinations are doing better and investing.”
Gibson said that there is not enough momentum headed into 2026, especially to address roadblocks like the convention center shutdown and the continued fire-related downturn on Maui.
Tokioka said, “As we approach the two-year anniversary of the Maui wildfires, tourism on the island continues to improve, but the pace has been slow. Visitor arrivals to Maui in the first half of 2025 rose 11.2% from a year ago, but decreased 17% in comparison to the first half of pre-pandemic 2019.”
Tokioka said that Gov. Josh Green recently released $6.3 million to support a tourism recovery campaign.
He added that the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority is working with the Los Angeles Rams, who held a preseason football camp on Maui in June, on a yearlong Los Angeles market activation campaign to promote tourism on Maui.
Josh Hargrove, general manager of The Westin Maui Resort &Spa, said the $6.3 million infusion will help, but came late for summer, and more marketing money is needed to fully recover Maui tourism, which affects the other islands.
“We are very grateful for any funds that we get, but it’s going to take more than that to be able to address something of the magnitude of what is happening on Maui,” he said.
Hargrove said the $6.3 million investment is lower than the marketing and sales budget for his one hotel, and is less than 1% of the more than $1 billion in tax revenue generated for the state.
“June wasn’t quite what we were hoping for,” Hargrove said. “July was OK — we’ll probably finish with an occupancy rate of around 75% when pre-madness (before the pandemic and wildfires) we had a percentile in the mid-80s at least. But we are much more concerned with August. We are looking at (an occupancy percentile) in the 60s.”
Hargrove said Maui has struggled to get the message out that it has fully reopened and welcomes visitors.
“The last chapter wasn’t shared with the world — Maui is beautiful and we are excited to open to families around the world,” he said. “We need to tell our story because in the absence of information, people will go to other destinations.”
Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said Hawaii as a state has had a minimal tourism marketing effort since the pandemic.
“On top of that, you had the Maui wildfires and people had concerns about impacting the island. You add that to no advertising, no marketing, and competitors going after our business — it almost seems like we are happy it’s not worse,” Vieira said. “Other destinations like the Caribbean, Mexico and Florida are investing and doing well.”
Chris Kam, president and chief operating officer of Omnitrak TravelTrak America, said Omnitrak’s Travel Market Penetration Index showed that more U.S. residents traveled in June compared to June 2024; however, nationwide air passenger counts through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints dropped 1%.
Kam said, “Americans increasingly view leisure travel as a necessity rather than a discretionary expense so they are traveling despite economic uncertainty; however, they are choosing to travel on a more budget-friendly basis with a preference for regional drive trips over flying and for shorter-haul travel over longer-haul travel.”
He said the overall airfare component of the travel price index shows that airfare is down 3.5% for the month of June, but motor fuel dropped 8.2% — a trend that works against Hawaii.
Kam said more kamaaina travelers are staycationing and Hawaii saw slightly more U.S. West travelers in June, likely because they were better positioned to respond to last-minute booking specials.
Source: The Garden Island
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