Hawaii Tourism Hits an Economic Low Tide

[afang]

HONOLULU — Brandon Hughes is one happy tourist.
Lounging with a Ken Follett novel in front of the Moana Surfrider, the grandiose hotel that put Waikiki beach on the map a century ago, the real estate investor from Sacramento boasts of the ease with which he has been finding prime spots for spreading out his towel (no small matter here at Waikiki)...

"I've never seen it so uncrowded," says Hughes, 47, who owns a one-sixth interest in a condominium just off the beach and has visited Honolulu at least once a year for the past two decades...

While many vacation destinations around the globe have suffered from September's terrorist attacks and the souring of the economy, perhaps none has been hit as hard as Hawaii, which depends on airplanes to deliver nearly all of its 7 million annual visitors.

Even before the attack, tourism was declining. But since Sept. 11, with Americans vacationing closer to home and driving to destinations instead of flying, visits to this remote island getaway have been in free fall.

In November, the latest month for which statistics are available, arrivals plunged 27%, after a 30% decline in October and a 34% drop in September — a rate of decline not seen here since that other infamous attack on American soil, the one that occurred just down the road at Pearl Harbor.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/travel/...-23-hawaii.htm

[afang]

HONOLULU — Brandon Hughes is one happy tourist.
Lounging with a Ken Follett novel in front of the Moana Surfrider, the grandiose hotel that put Waikiki beach on the map a century ago, the real estate investor from Sacramento boasts of the ease with which he has been finding prime spots for spreading out his towel (no small matter here at Waikiki)...

"I've never seen it so uncrowded," says Hughes, 47, who owns a one-sixth interest in a condominium just off the beach and has visited Honolulu at least once a year for the past two decades...

While many vacation destinations around the globe have suffered from September's terrorist attacks and the souring of the economy, perhaps none has been hit as hard as Hawaii, which depends on airplanes to deliver nearly all of its 7 million annual visitors.

Even before the attack, tourism was declining. But since Sept. 11, with Americans vacationing closer to home and driving to destinations instead of flying, visits to this remote island getaway have been in free fall.

In November, the latest month for which statistics are available, arrivals plunged 27%, after a 30% decline in October and a 34% drop in September — a rate of decline not seen here since that other infamous attack on American soil, the one that occurred just down the road at Pearl Harbor.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/travel/...-23-hawaii.htm