Hawaii logs its best three days of tourist arrivals in a year

Hawaii tourism saw a solid bump in air travel last week when it realized the highest three-day tourism streak since the pandemic began.

Some 21,433 trans-Pacific travelers and 4,968 interisland travelers were screened by Safe Travels Hawaii on Saturday, Hawaii’s best single day since coronavirus-related fears and government restrictions caused travel to plummet.

As many as 15,963 trans-­Pacific passengers and 2,702 interisland travelers said they were traveling for vacation or pleasure Saturday, according to data compiled by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

Hawaii’s airports were also busy Thursday and Friday.

Across the nation, air travel is picking up. Friday marked the highest screening day for the Transportation Security Administration since mid-March 2020.

TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said Saturday that TSA officers screened nearly 1.36 million people Friday at airport security checkpoints throughout the U.S., the highest figure since March 15, 2020, when checkpoints reported more than 1.5 million passengers.

On Monday, Farbstein said TSA screened 1.34 million people Sunday, making it the fourth consecutive day with more than 1 million screened.

The last time checkpoint volume saw four straight days of more than 1 million was in December, she said.

Improvements in TSA counts and Hawaii travelers come as U.S. educational institutions enter their spring breaks, which usually begin before the middle of March and the end toward the later part of April.

The gain in travelers also closely tracks with the news Friday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that more than 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the U.S.

Jackie Bornstein, a visitor from Los Angeles who arrived Monday at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, said the timing of her trip was based in part on the fact that she is now fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and that Hawaii’s infection rate is low and precautions are high.

“I feel very good about traveling here. You guys are being very conscious about having people tested or, if they haven’t been tested, having to quarantine,” said Bornstein.

Bornstein said Hawaii’s coronavirus safety track record, along with the state’s beauty, enticed her son Mike Bornstein and his wife, Tiffany, to take advantage of the opportunity to work remotely and move their family to Oahu for six months. The couple, who are homeschooling children Bennett, 6, and Rigby, 4, have been living in Waialua since January.

“I’m here for eight days this time. There’s no doubt I’ll be back,” Bornstein said. “I have a son that lives in Texas. I’m not so comfortable going there where there are no masks.”

Although Hawaii has seen spring travel pick up, arrivals to the islands remain well below pre-pandemic levels when 2019 brought a record 10.4 million arrivals.

Some Hawaii Residents are happy with the drop in tourists. They’ve noted that there has been less traffic and less wear-and-tear on infrastructure and natural resources. Fewer tourists also help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

However, the 73.8% year-over-year drop in arrivals, which HTA said fell to just 2.7 million in 2020, also put a terrible economic burden on Hawaii’s tourism-reliant economy.

The increase in Americans who are traveling by air is a positive development for Hawaii’s tourism industry, which is more dependent than ever on the U.S. travel market.

It’s especially good news for the neighbor islands, where the bulk of travelers come from the mainland.

Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said Hawaii is benefiting from its low coronavirus case count, widening vaccine distribution as well as pent-up demand from travelers who are weary of last year’s lockdowns.

“Our advance bookings are very strong and getting stronger,” Vieira said. “Hotels are seeing continued pickup all the way through summer, which we think could run as high as 50% occupancy. We’re hearing from guests that they want to travel and that Hawaii is probably their most trusted destination.”

Vieira said even if all anticipated travel bookings materialize, Hawaii still isn’t expected to return to 2019 tourism levels until at least 2023.

“We won’t be back to 2019 levels even by 2022 because we’ve had too many group cancellations,” he said. “We also need to get international visitors back. … There’s a general acceptance that the world has changed, and like in most comparisons, Hawaii is still the best place to go.”