Hawaii saw nearly 10M visitors last year. That’s half a million more than in 2017

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Despite several natural disasters in Hawaii last year, the number of visitors who traveled the islands rose nearly 6 percent in 2018 from the year before.

Altogether, some 9.9 million visitors traveled to the islands last year ― or about 500,000 more than flocked to the state in 2017.

Meanwhile, visitors to the Hawaiian Islands spent about $17.8 billion in 2018, a 6.8 percent increase from the year before. Statewide, visitors spent an average of $201 per day.

On average, there were over 240,000 visitors in the state on any given day.

Oahu, Maui and Kauai all saw increases in visitors — and visitor spending. But the Big Island, where the Kilauea eruption lasted for months and destroyed hundreds of homes, did take a big hit in visitor arrivals.

Some 7 million visitors flocked to Oahu, the highest visitor total of any island. Visitor spending rose to $8.2 billion.

Maui brought in almost 3 million visitors, and saw $5.1 billion in visitor spending.

Kauai finished 2018 by bringing in 1.3 million visitors and $2 billion in visitor spending.

However, visitor arrivals to the Big Island decreased by 1.7 million.

Worth noting, though: Visitor spending on the island remained flat ― at $2.4 billion.

Copyright 2019 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.