Categories: Tourism

Prince Kuhio Day makes Hawaii Tourism Authority forget rising COVID-19 numbers

The US State of Hawaii is dependent on the travel and tourism industry. Quietly tourism arrivals skyrocketed over the last month compared to anytime in the pandemic. Will this be sustainable?

Hawaii’s visitors arrival numbers from the US Mainland had been increasing to record numbers over the last 4 weeks
Hawaii also recorded a record day today in number of new COVID-19 cases for more than a month
Prince Kuhio Day is a welcoming reason for Tourism leaders to celebrate and stay quiet on this developing situation for the Hawaii travel and tourism industry, overall economy, and health situation

It’s Prince Kūhiō Day in Hawaii today, and Government officials are not available to respond or comment on the alarming spike in COVID-19 infection in the Aloha State over the last 2 days. Hawaii is now back into a trend of triple-digit increase what goes along with an ever-increasing visitor arrival numbers from the US mainland for the last few weeks. Today the State recorded 126 new cases.

The more outspoken Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi told eTurboNews in a statement:

Oahu is still in the Tier 3 metric of the reopening strategy. The City monitors current conditions and recognizes there has been an uptick in positive COVID-19 cases over the past week on O‘ahu. Public health is the priority and the City continues to work with the State Department of Health and health experts to assess current risks and make adjustments as needed. We continue to safely reopen the economy allowing more people to return to work. The community must also work together to prevent the spread of the virus by continuing to wear masks, remaining physically distanced and abiding by the rules of the reopening strategy.

In the meantime, one airline after another is announcing new domestic flights to additional visitor markets. Some of these flights operate from regions that were considered secondary for Hawaii, but primary markets for the Caribbean.

Considering that international arrivals from Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand had not yet restarted, the surprising rise in domestic business was unexpected for many.

In a short term the increase in visitors is excellent news for hotels, attractions, restaurants, shops and transportation sector, but may also be a disaster in the making long term.

As the Hawaii Tourism Authority is celebrating Prince Kuhio Day today, there won’t be any comments on this situation until Monday, Easter Monday hopefully. One can only hope this will have become a mute issue by Monday, depending on the COVID-19 infection numbers in the upcoming two days.

In the meantime Hawaii is doing really well in vaccinating its citizens. As of Monday anyone 60 and over can get the vaccine, and all priority groups had been vaccinated by now.