Hawaii visitor spending, traveller numbers up in February

HONOLULU – The Hawaii Tourism Authority says average daily spending by visitors jumped 11.5 per cent last month compared to the year before.

The state agency said Wednesday spending by travellers topped $47.8 million per day in February.

For the entire month, visitor spending rose 7.7 per cent. But a comparison of monthly spending between the two years is misleading because there were 29 days in February in 2016 due to the leap year.

The agency says there were more than 230,000 visitors in Hawaii on any given day last month. That’s up nearly 6 per cent from the number last year.

Spending rose for visitors from the U.S. mainland, Japan and Canada. Travelers increased from the mainland and Japan but declined from Canada.