Visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent U.S. dollars 17.82 billion in 2018, as per the preliminary year-end statistics. It recorded an increase of 6.8 per cent over 2017. This generated a +6.8 per cent or U.S. dollars 133.1 million more state tax revenue in 2018 to U.S. dollars 2.08 billion. Hawaii welcomed 9,954,548 visitors in 2018 which is an increase of 5.9 per cent from the 9,404,346 visitors in 2017.
In 2018, visitor spending increased from the U.S. West (U.S. dollars6.64 billion, +9.1 per cent), U.S. East (U.S. dollars 4.57 billion, +8.1 per cent), Japan (U.S. dollars 2.31 billion, +2.1 per cent), Canada (U.S. dollars 1.10 billion, +5.6 per cent) and all other International Markets (U.S. dollars 3.17 billion, +4.5 per cent) compared to 2017.
Oahu, Maui and Kauai all recorded increases in both visitor spending and visitor arrivals in 2018.
Visitor spending on Oahu rose to U.S. dollars 8.16 billion (+7.2 per cent) with visitor arrivals of 5,935,007 (+4.3per cent). Maui visitor spending totaled U.S. dollars 5.07 billion (+8.3 per cent) with visitor arrivals of 2,914,122 (+6.2 per cent). Kauai visitor spending was U.S. dollars 2.00 billion (+10.2 per cent) with visitor arrivals of 1,377,777 (+7.6 per cent).
Arrivals by air service increased to 9,827,132 visitors (+5.9 per cent) in 2018, with growth from U.S. West (+9.6 per cent), U.S. East (+7.9 per cent), Canada (+2.7 per cent) and All Other International Markets (+2.0 per cent) offsetting a slight decrease from Japan (-1.0 per cent). Arrivals by cruise ships rose slightly to 127,415 visitors (+0.5 per cent) compared to 2017.
