Visitor arrivals to Hawaii declined in September, but higher daily spending helped bolster tourism revenue — though inflation and rising operational costs cut into the increases.
A total of 690,858 visitors came to Hawaii last month, down 2.5% from September 2024. Despite the drop, average daily spending rose 11.3% to $270 per person, pushing nominal visitor expenditures to $1.54 billion — an 8.1% year-over-year rise.
Year to date, some 7.29 million visitors came to Hawaii, a modest 0.4% increase over the same period last year. Total spending for the first nine months of 2025 reached $16.17 billion in nominal dollars, up 4.9%.
Most visitors — 674,860 — arrived by air, primarily from the U.S. West and East, while 15,998 came via out-of-state cruise ships. Air arrivals were down 2.2%, and cruise arrivals dropped 14.5% compared to the previous year.
Air capacity also softened slightly, with 4,432 trans-Pacific flights and 982,375 seats — down 1.0% and 0.8%, respectively.
Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawaii Hotel Alliance, said on a call from France that “September wasn’t a great month” for arrivals or even spending given that operational costs have continued to rise.
“We have huge labor costs, and costs have risen for materials and goods as well as food and beverage products. Shipping costs are really rising,” he said. “The average daily rates (charged for hotel rooms) aren’t keeping up with the costs at this point. Are we more profitable today than we were in the past? I would say we are fairly stagnant.”
National, state trends
The September slowdown wasn’t unique to Hawaii.
Nationally, travel dipped from August but remained above year-ago levels, said Chris Kam, president and chief operating officer of Omnitrak TravelTrak America.
“Despite seasonal cooling in overall travel activity, Americans continued to engage in travel at higher rates than a year ago — signaling a more resilient baseline for domestic travel demand heading into fall,” Kam said.
While travel participation across the U.S. remained high despite slipping consumer confidence and the ending of summer, Kam said TSA checkpoint numbers were flat signaling that travelers are more price-conscious and many are driving.
“That’s not a great trend for Hawaii,” he said.”We are down compared to the rest of the nation. We aren’t really considered a budget destination. You need to fly to get here — that costs quite a bit more than just driving to another neighboring state.”
Dampening demand for Hawaii from its core domestic markets showed up in the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism data.
The U.S. West, Hawaii’s largest visitor source, saw arrivals fall 4.7% to 342,608. Still, spending surged 14.7% to $737.5 million, with daily spending up 19.8% to $265 per person.
The U.S. East market grew 2% to 163,579 visitors. Their spending rose 8.8% to $434.9 million, with daily expenditures up 12.7% to nearly $302 per person.
Canada, Hawaii’s second-largest international market, saw arrivals drop 2.3% to 19,243. Spending fell 1.5% to $44 million, with daily spending down slightly to nearly $236 per person.
Visitors from other international markets totaled 77,216, down 8.1% year over year.
A bright spot emerged from Japan, which saw a rebound in September. Arrivals rose 8.6% to 72,214, and spending climbed 11.6% to $107.7 million. Daily spending increased 2.7% to more than $241 per person.
DBEDT Director James Kunane Tokioka highlighted the Japan market’s recovery, noting his recent trip with Gov. Josh Green to strengthen tourism and business ties
Competitive pressures
Tokioka acknowledged the challenges noting declines from key markets like the U.S. West and Canada. “Hawaii faces stiff competition from other destinations,” he said. “It is important for Hawaii to continue marketing to the world.”
Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said Hawaii’s $63 million tourism budget is insufficient to compete globally.
“They’re all outspending us,” Vieira said.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board of directors unanimously approved a $460 million budget for fiscal year 2026 with $168 million dedicated to destination marketing and sales, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. That’s up from its 2025 allocation of $457.5 million that dedicated $103.6 million for advertising.
Visit California, which markets tourism, allocated $180 million in total marketing expenditures for fiscal year 2023-2024, according to ProPublica.That’s up from $149.4 million in 2022-2023.
State funding for Visit Florida rose from $83 million last fiscal year to $86 million this fiscal year, according to Visit Florida’s annual reports.
The Economic Times reported that Thailand is decreasing its budget in 2026, but it’s still a robust $139 million.
Ground News recently reported that Cancun/the Rivera Maya will increase its tourism budget to $12 million in 2026, a 107% increase from 2025.
Weak momentum
Vieira said weak marketing amid softening demand has hurt bookings for the fourth quarter and early 2026.“Several hotels are reporting bookings down 10% to 20%,” he said.
He and Gibson said the federal shutdown and uncertain economy are exacerbating already challenging market conditions.
Gibson said October has seen slight improvement, but “it’s not robust at all.” November is flat, and while December arrivals for the JAL Honolulu Marathon look strong, the festive season is lagging.
“We don’t have strong momentum headed into the first quarter,” Gibson said.
These observations from Vieira and Gibson come as the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB) is seeking additional funding from the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) to drive travel from Hawaii’s core U.S.visitor source market to Hawaii. HVCB requested Thursday that the HTA advisory board revisit HVCB’s original $10 million request for a statewide recovery campaign, which last year was cut by $4 million and refocused on Maui alone.
Aaron J. Sala, HVCB president and CEO, said data shows that the $6 million Maui Emergency Marketing Campaign, which began in July and will end in December, has been successful. But given current statewide market challenges, he said HVCB has asked HTA to consider allocating the $4 million that was held back to “infuse immediate energy and to realize direct conversion to support the entire state.”
“Based on what we are seeing now in the trends in 2026 … a robust campaign above the base budget of incremental funds would be critically important … to the economy of this state,” Sala said.
Source: The Garden Island
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