Who visited Hawaii’s top destinations the most? That’s a question the State of Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT) sought to answer in a new study. The results will surprise you, though I also think they’re not entirely accurate.
Overtourism is an issue at the heart of many discussions across Hawaii. But how much of an impact are tourists really having on high-traffic points of interest? There’s no really good way of determining this outside of places with a mandatory reservation system. However, the State of Hawaii DBEDT and the Hawaii Tourism Authority recently conducted a study using cell phone geolocation data to give us an idea of who really is going where.
Who Visited Hawaii’s Top Destinations the Most?
So who visited Hawaii’s top destination the most? According to the data on the 30 busiest destinations, Hawaii residents are, by a long shot, the most frequent visitors to these destinations, aside from a few outliers. The destinations dominated by local visitors – meaning more than half were locals – include:
- Kalakaua Avenue
- Kailua town and beach
- Upcountry Maui
- Chinatown
- Ala Moana Shopping Center
- Ko Olina Resort
- Kapiolani Park
- Kapahulu Avenue
- Lahaina Bypass
- Honolulu Watershed Forest Reserve
- Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center
- Kailua-Kona Town
- Hana/Road to Hana
- Lahaina Cannery Mall
- Honolulu International Airport Car Rental Center
- Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
- Diamond Head State Monument
- Ala Moana Regional Park
- Paia Town
The destinations that saw more tourists than locals include:
- Front Street in Lahaina
- Whalers Village Shopping Center
- Pearl Harbor National Memorial
- Kahului Airport Car Rental Center
- Hanalei
- Fort DeRussy Beach Park
- Kaanapali Kai Golf Course
- Dole Plantation
- Lahaina Market Place Shopping Center
- Kuhio Beach Park
In a way, I’m not surprised by who visited Hawaii’s top destinations the most. Places like Dole Plantation are blatant tourist traps. However, a lot of this doesn’t make a lot of sense, either, or has skewed data. For example, Honolulu’s Chinatown is part of our urban core and is home to many businesses and apartment buildings. Of course, Chinatown will have far more local visitors than tourists! And the same can be said of other residential/business or major transit corridors on this list.
One that puzzles me, though, is how they determined that locals are the most frequent visitors to Hana/Road to Hana. Hana has a small population of just 1,526 residents. With so many rental cars and tour buses going into the area every day, how on earth did they draw this conclusion? Especially since more tourists are going to the car rental center in Kahului than locals.
Places like Diamond Head State Monument and Ala Moana Regional Park having more locals than visitors doesn’t really surprise me. Both are immensely popular with locals, as is much of Waikiki’s dining scene – despite what some locals may say 😉.
Final Thoughts
It’s worth noting that this study of who visited Hawaii’s top destinations the most only covers September 2022. And while the data provides us with interesting insights, I do think we need more information. Right now, I’m assuming they’re not filtering out residents that live and work in the area, which should be pretty easy based on activity patterns. But, eh. It is what it is.
What is perhaps more interesting is what Oahu’s top tourist-visited cites are. Based on total number of visitors, our top 5 includes:
- Kalakaua Avenue
- Kailua town and beach
- Chinatown
- Ala Moana Shopping Center
- Ko Olina Resort
If 691,800 visitors made their way to Hawaii, and 7.5% of them went to Kailua town, that means nearly 52,000 tourists flooded the area in September, which translates to 1,730 tourists per day. The area has a permanent population of just over 40,000 residents. So you can see how this can be problematic.