Hawaii Visitors are Back – Just Not That Many of Them
The State's new pre-travel testing program allowing visitors with a negative COVID-19 test to avoid a 14-day quarantine is welcome news to the visitor industry. Unfortunately the cost of the test, the lack of availability of timely tests (within 72 hours of departure), the risk (albeit low, but not zero) of a false positive or not getting results validated by the State are all challenges that are keeping our visitor numbers low. Powell & Aucello’s projection is that visitor numbers will stay in the current range until a COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available.
Erik Kloninger Provides Additional Insight on Visitor Arrivals
The chart below presents daily statewide visitor arrivals as reported by HTA using a 7-day moving average since the start of the pre-arrival testing program began on October 15. After remaining below 1,000/day, statewide daily visitor arrivals spiked starting on Oct. 15, 2020. This likely reflects both pent-up demand and adjustments of travel dates to take advantage of the pre-departure testing exemption. Arrivals tailed off for about a week and a half to the 3,500/day level toward the end of October before picking up to the 5,500/day level by the end of the first week of November. Daily visitor arrivals plateaued at about 5,600/day for a week before ticking up again after mid-November. By Nov. 19, 2020, the 7-day moving average had crossed the 6,000 mark.
