Hawaii tourism slows as journey uncertainty lingers after shutdown

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – It’s been lower than 24 hours for the reason that federal authorities reopened, and whereas the total financial after-effects aren’t but seen, Hawaii’s tourism slowdown is already in movement, specialists say.

Travel disruptions and the fallout from the latest shutdown are making an already smooth season even softer.

Travel advisors say October was one of the slowest months they’ve seen, and early numbers for November aren’t looking much better.

Fewer inquiries and bookings, together with elevated traveler hesitation, are contributing to the decline.

“In October, we’re seeing just a shift in bookings, a lot less than we normally would. I would say 7% less in actual bookings and probably 20% less in actual people contacting us over last year, which I think is pretty dramatic,” mentioned Bruce Fisher, a Hawaii journey advisor.

Fisher mentioned uncertainty surrounding FAA outages and different journey disruptions has solely added to the slowdown.

“When the FAA thing came out and all of that started happening, we started to get a lot more people worrying and asking about it, and cancellations and hesitation,” he mentioned.

That hesitation issues in a state the place tourism is a serious financial driver.

“We had already seen a decline in visitor expenditures for the second half of the year. The first half of the year was relatively robust, but after June, things have been declining,” mentioned Seth Colby, Hawaii’s chief state economist.

Colby mentioned the shutdown additionally made it tougher for economists to trace the development as a result of federal knowledge was delayed.

“One of the things it did leave, especially for us as economists, is the lack of data. We did not have as much data for one month out of the year,” Colby mentioned.

He added that disruptions to air journey, the lack of federal enterprise journey and the tempered spending of furloughed employees will additional soften an already weak tourism market.

“There’s also a lot of uncertainty about plane travel, and we are not going to get that visitor spending back from the visitors and the people who wanted to come out here but could not,” Colby mentioned.

Even with the federal government reopened, specialists say the tourism slowdown received’t bounce again in a single day. The subsequent few months might be important for Hawaii’s journey trade.

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