The Kahului Airport is awash in travelers in early November. A recently released state report shows Maui saw 2.9 million visitor arrivals in 2022, which is a near-recovery from its pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when a record-breaking 3 million visitors came to Maui. While there were fewer visitors in 2022, they spent $5.69 billion, an 11 percent increase over 2019. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Maui welcomed around 2.9 million visitors last year, which represented a 95.1 percent recovery from pre-pandemic levels back in 2019, outpacing the state’s overall recovery rate, according to a report released earlier this week.

Maui hit a high of 3,059,905 visitors in 2019, the first time visitor arrivals surpassed the 3 million mark since record-keeping began around 30 years ago.

The state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism said on Monday that total visitor spending on Maui was $5.69 billion last year, up 11 percent from the $5.13 billion spent in 2019.

Statewide last year, about 9.2 million visitors came to Hawaii, representing an 89 percent recovery from 2019, when there were nearly 10.4 million visitors.

In 2022, total visitor spending was $19.29 billion, up 8.9 percent from $17.72 billion in 2019.

A traveler checks his phone while waiting at the Kahului Airport Rent-A-Car facility in July at the height of Maui’s summer travel season.

Of all the islands, Kauai last year came the closest to reaching the annual visitor arrivals seen at pre-pandemic levels.

Kauai had around 1.35 million visitors last year, a 98.2 percent recovery from 2019, when there were 1.37 million visitors.

Hawaii island saw 1.67 million visitors in 2022, a 94.9 percent recovery from 2019, when there were 1.76 million visitors.

Oahu trailed all other islands in recovery, as it saw 4.86 million visitors in 2022, representing a 79 percent recovery from 2019, with 6.15 million visitors.

For all islands in 2022, total visitor spending was up from 2019 levels.

In December, Maui saw a dip in visitors with 259,094, down 5.9 percent versus the 275,419 visitors who came in December 2019.

Visitor spending was $557 million, or up 8.6 percent from the $513.1 million spent in December 2019.

The average daily census on Maui was 71,461 visitors in December, down 5.8 percent from the daily census of 75,856 visitors in December 2019.

Statewide, there were 871,870 visitors in December, a 91.5 percent recovery from the same month in 2019.

Visitors to Hawaii in December spent $1.90 billion, or an increase of 8.2 percent compared to the $1.75 billion reported for December 2019.

Statewide, 858,110 visitors in December arrived via air service, mainly from the U.S. West and U.S. East. Additionally, 13,761 visitors arrived by cruise ships in December.

Hawaii economists have projected that the recovering visitor industry will help the state whether any U.S. recessions, especially with the recent return of international visitors from Japan, historically a big market for the state, especially Oahu.

The number of visitors from Japan still remained low with the state seeing 36,988 visitors in December, down 72.9 percent from December 2019 when there were 136,635 visitors from Japan.

But, DBEDT Director Chris J. Sadayasu said, “It is encouraging to see improvement in our international visitor markets.”

He said that December visitor arrivals from Japan and Canada (58,361) were at “the highest monthly levels since the start of the pandemic.”

While the international market still lags in arrivals, the U.S. visitor market is outpacing its pre-pandemic levels. In 2022, international visitors that arrived by air recovered 41.3 percent from 2019, while U.S. visitor arrivals were 12.9 percent higher than the 2019 level.

“With the continued appreciation of the Japanese yen, we expect to see a significant improvement in the Japanese market in 2023,” Sadayasu said in a news release.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

The Kahului Airport is awash in travelers in early November. A recently released state report shows Maui saw 2.9 million visitor arrivals in 2022, which is a near-recovery from its pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when a record-breaking 3 million visitors came to Maui. While there were fewer visitors in 2022, they spent $5.69 billion, an 11 percent increase over 2019. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo A traveler checks his phone while waiting at the Kahului Airport Rent-A-Car facility in July at the height of Maui’s summer travel season.

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