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Hawaii visitor arrivals top 400 for the 5th straight day

CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / MAY 18
                                A traveler headed to Terminal 1 at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / MAY 18

A traveler headed to Terminal 1 at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

The number of visitors arriving in Hawaii remained higher than usual Friday with more than 400 visitors arriving in the islands for the fifth straight day.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority said today that 458 visitors, or about 32% of all arriving passengers, flew to Hawaii aboard 19 flights on Friday. The other passengers included 410 returning residents, 153 crew members, 149 military members, 140 people relocating to Hawaii, and 75 people who received prior state approval to avoid the mandatory 14-day quarantine for travelers. Another 46 were passengers transiting on to other destinations.

In total, 1,431 passengers arrived in the islands Friday, with most going to Oahu and only 101 heading to Maui and 42 landing on Kauai.

>> RELATED: Hawaii coronavirus cases climb by 9 for second straight day, raising statewide total to 673

Friday’s totals were the second highest number of visitors to arrive in the islands since Gov. David Ige ordered a two-week quarantine for arriving passengers, which was extended to interisland passengers on April 1. The quarantine was issued to suppress tourism and the spread of the coronavirus in the islands. The interisland quarantine is set to expire June 16 and the trans-Pacific quarantine is expected to be extended beyond June 30.

Thursday had the highest number of visitors since the quarantine began, with 546, but the number of visitors has been higher in the past week than during the entire time the state has been under the travel lockdown.

The number of arrivals are still a far cry from the 30,000 passengers who were arriving daily in Hawaii at this time last year. Only 4,564 visitors traveled to Hawaii in April, according to HTA preliminary statistics.

That’s a 99.5% drop compared to a year ago when 856,250 visitors came by air and cruise ship. HTA did not provide a spending estimate for this April’s visitors, but it would have been minuscule compared to the $1.3 billion that visitors to Hawaii spent in April 2019.

In May, the number of arrivals totaled about 8,500, according to preliminary statistics provided by HTA.

Of the 409 visitors that went to Oahu on Friday, 30 answered on the state’s mandatory travel declaration form that they were going to Hawaii for vacation, while 33 said they were traveling for business. About 310 said they were visiting family and friends, and 16 gave multiple reasons for the purpose of their visit. Nineteen did not answer the question.

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