{"id":4044,"date":"2021-06-22T16:59:34","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lgcassocprod.wpengine.com\/?p=4044"},"modified":"2024-03-13T07:15:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T11:15:53","slug":"hawaiis-covid-recovery-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lgcassociates.com\/es\/hawaiis-covid-recovery-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii\u2019s COVID Recovery in 2021\u00a0| Hospitality in the News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week we comb through the news to find employment trends affecting the hospitality industry so you don\u2019t have to. This week\u2019s topic: Hawaii’s COVID recovery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As the hospitality industry continues to work on its\u2019 recovery,\u00a0experts are looking at\u00a0travel\u00a0meccas like Hawaii to\u00a0understand what steps\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0taking towards rebuilding\u00a0tourism. Not only is Hawaii\u00a0in the\u00a0top ten\u00a0most visited states, but it also\u00a0boasts\u00a0one of the\u00a0<\/span>highest concentrations<\/span><\/a> of hospitality and leisure jobs in the country. It\u2019s no wonder that the pandemic has caused their unemployment rates to reach 8.5% (as of April 2021), the highest in the country.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With this in mind, we can understand that by tourism growing it should help bring the hospitality sector back to its original strength. Which brings us to our topic \u2013 Hawaii’s COVID recovery to pre-pandemic levels and how the pandemic impacted tourism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hawaii’s COVID Recovery<\/b><\/h5>\n

When\u00a0cities\u00a0around the country\u00a0began to close businesses and place restrictions on gatherings, Hawaii took it one step further by being the\u00a0<\/span>first<\/span><\/a>\u00a0state to require out-of-state travelers to quarantine upon arrival.\u00a0While this has a positive impact on\u00a0its\u00a0number of COVID cases\u00a0(to date they\u2019ve had just over 35,000 cases and 500 deaths) compared to the rest of the nation, it was a major factor in\u00a0its decrease in tourism.\u00a0Fears about flying\u00a0also contributed to\u00a0the downshift in visitors.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But just how big was the decrease?\u00a0Comparing April 2020 numbers with the year prior, visitors\u00a0<\/span>dropped<\/span><\/a>\u00a099.5%, going from\u00a0856,250 arrivals in 2019 to\u00a04,564 in 2020.\u00a0This staggering change in travelers\u00a0had a huge impact on the hospitality industry.\u00a0As it stands right now,\u00a0<\/span>reports<\/span><\/a>\u00a0say that 1 in 6\u00a0people\u00a0are still out of work. And with the impact on the hospitality and tourism industry\u00a0comes the effect on small and local businesses who rely on travelers\u00a0for revenue.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2021 started off slow for Hawaii\u2019s tourism, the last couple of months have provided hope for their eventual recovery. But according to Hawaii News Now (HNN), \u201cWhile visitor levels are seeing positive growth, the state anticipates that true recovery to pre-COVID levels won\u2019t come until at least 2024.\u201d That said, HNN also reports visitor arrivals are expected to reach 6.6 million this year \u2015 or 64% of arrival numbers from 2019. With all the challenges the Aloha State faced during the pandemic, the fact that they can bring in over two thirds of their arrival numbers is impressive; so what are they doing to draw travelers back in? And where are they in Hawaii’s COVID recovery?<\/span><\/p>\n

How is the Hawaii\u00a0bringing back\u00a0tourism?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

Hawaii’s COVID recovery relies heavily on tourism. With tourism recovering comes growth for other industries like hospitality or the local businesses that rely on travelers. Here are some of the ways officials in Hawaii have worked on rebuilding their tourism sector: <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n