Hawaii cruises boost arrivals by 7%
Hawaii's 2007 visitor arrivals would have fallen by about 7 percent if it wasn't for the state's booming cruise ship business.
Cruise passenger arrivals to Hawaii hit 501,000 last year, up 21 percent from 2006.
The state's official visitor arrival numbers, released last week, put 2007 arrivals at 7.36 million, down 1.2 percent from 2006.
Without the cruise passenger arrivals, total arrivals would have slipped to 6.85 million, slightly less than the 6.9 million recorded in 2004 payday advance lenders. That's also close to arrival numbers last seen in the late 1990s.
The Hawaii cruise business began in earnest in 2004 and since then has grown dramatically with 77 cruise ship arrivals last year. Without the cruise business, Hawaii's visitor arrivals would have been essentially flat for the past four years.
Filed under: online by Wolf