August's Economic News

Aloha Kakou:

August's 20.9% decrease in visitor arrivals (as compared to 2007) was compounded by a drop in West Coast visitor spending by 7.3%. Put plainly, we have fewer visitors who are spending less money while they're here.

Maui's decline of almost 21% in visitor arrivals isn't that bad when you compare it to the other islands: the Big Island had a visitor count decrease of 22.9% and Kauai had decrease of 25 percent.

The economic slowdown here is palpable. There are fewer diners in restaurants, and in many cases you no longer need reservations. Cruise down Front Street and you have your choice of parking spaces. You can breeze in and out of Costco and Walmart in record time; last night, Walmart's parking lot looked like were closed, it was that empty. Traffic on Honoapiilani Highway is far lighter than usual with plenty of wide open lanes on my drive home.

It's all just speculation on the duration of this downturn. My crystal ball isn't any clearer than anyone else's. I'd like to think that we just have to weather the storm until Christmas and then optimism will return, and then I look at today's stock market results and start to think that perhaps it is me who is being optimistic.

If you haven't seen it, here are the details from last Saturday's Maui News:

http://mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/509024.html?nav=10