Hawai‘i visitor arrivals in 2025 remained below pre-pandemic levels despite higher spending, raising concerns for local tourism businesses facing rising costs and closures.
Visitor numbers to Hawai‘i in 2025 remain below pre-pandemic numbers, reported the state’s Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT)
Preliminary data for the year estimates that 9.64 million visitors came to the Aloha State in 2025—a 0.6% drop from 2024, and nearly a million fewer visitors than in 2019, which was the highest year on record for visitor arrivals.
Director of Hawai‘i DBEDT James Kunana Tokiaka noted that although total visitor numbers were down, spending was up: “Looking back at calendar year 2025, despite some challenges, total arrivals were basically flat while total visitor spending was above 2024 levels.” Total visitor spending in Hawai‘i was 5.7% higher than in 2024, but local businesses may see some of that spending offset by inflation near 3%.
Tokioka noted that visitor numbers from Japan are especially encouraging, up just over 3% compared to last year, although overall visitor arrivals from Japan, Australia/New Zealand, and Canada remain down compared to pre-pandemic levels. Canada, in particular, saw a decline in traffic in 2025, with 11.6% fewer visitors.
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The traffic losses appeared to be primarily concentrated on O‘ahu, where the closure of the Hawai‘i Convention Center for repairs and renovations is expected to significantly impact group traffic until it reopens in 2028. The neighbor islands of Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i Island, and Maui all saw visitor number increases, while traffic to Lāna‘i and Moloka‘i dropped.
Two local tourism leaders warned that, despite increased visitor numbers and spending, the state’s tourism industry faces pressures. Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates, Hospitality Consulting, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that stagnant hotel occupancy is squeezing local tourism operators who depend on higher visitor numbers to keep their tourism businesses viable.
“At 73.9% [average hotel occupancy], all the mom and pops can’t survive,” he said.
Several tourism businesses in the state have recently shuttered, and more are in danger of closing in 2026. O‘ahu’s popular Paradise Cove Luau closed on December 31 after 47 years, with the loss of 172 jobs. The land is slated for redevelopment into a new dining, entertainment, and retail complex.
Duty-free retailer DFS, which has operated in Hawai‘i for 63 years, will close its three stores. The Waikīkī store shuttered in January, with the store at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport planned to close in March, and a store at Maui’s Kahului Airport will close in August. A total of 183 jobs will be impacted across the three stores. Duty-free retailers are largely dependent on international inbound travelers—a market that has been slower to recover.
Also on O‘ahu, the Polynesian Cultural Center laid off 10% of its staff in September.
On Kaua‘i, Kauai Coffee Company is in danger of closing at the end of March amidst a land lease dispute. The company, owned by Italian conglomerate Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group, does not own the land on which it grows the company’s coffee, and they have so far failed to reach a renewal agreement on the lease terms. Kauai Coffee, the largest coffee grower in the US, operates a popular visitor center, and a closure is expected to impact 141 jobs.
Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance, joined Viera in questioning the state’s focus on attracting higher-spending luxury travelers, saying that the middle segment of the market remained important, and that a good mix of market segments was needed. Viera told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the state’s market strength came from a strong base of repeat visitors, and those visitors primarily came from the middle market segments—not the luxury ones.
Cruise traffic also declined in 2025, largely related to NCL’s Pride of America entering drydock for a month for maintenance. Pride of America is the only large cruise ship sailing solely within the Hawaiian Islands on a year-round basis, because federal law requires a foreign port of call for foreign-flagged cruise ships sailing between US ports. The nearest foreign port is several days away from Honolulu; the Pride of America is U.S.-flagged and not subject to the requirement.
Hawai‘i also increased tourism taxes effective January 1. An additional 0.75% tacked on to the state’s existing lodging tax will help combat climate change, although a proposal to extend the lodging tax to cruise passengers has been temporarily blocked by a federal appeals court after the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) argued that the taxes violated US law. CLIA argued that the law allows ports to collect user fees directly related to the costs of passenger handling, but not sales taxes.
