Quake Sinks Hawaii's Tourism (Honolulu, Hilo: sales, foreclosure, houses)

[Dragneel]

HONOLULU—Hawaii is grappling with twin effects from Japan's earthquake.
Not only did last month's temblor generate a tsunami that damaged or destroyed dozens of local shops and attractions, but Japanese tourists are now canceling travel to the state amid the devastation back home.



Quake Sinks Hawaii's Tourism - WSJ.com


Not good..

[leilaniguy]

Yes we know. There is also the erroneous perception by some mainlanders that Hawaii is getting irradiated because we're closer to Japan.

[hotzcatz]

However, a lot of the pessimism in that article is over blown. If you read the further details and get past the headline (headlines sell papers, you know) it is written:

"Paul Brewbaker, chairman of Hawaii's Council on Revenues, a state agency that prepares revenue estimates for Hawaii's government, said the decline in Japanese visitors could reduce the state's projected 3.2% rise in gross domestic product by as much as a percentage point."

So it's not like we will go into negative numbers, the number will just be less positive than it has previously been anticipated. Paul Brewbaker is very good with numbers and he's probably one of the most credible economic Hawaii forecasters we have.

Maybe it's just springtime optimism, but overall things feel like they are beginning to be on the road to recovery. Little stuff like more folks interested in building houses again. Small houses and inexpensive houses, but starting to build again. There had been almost a year there where nobody was building anything new. There are still a lot of folks facing foreclosure and there's still a ton of inventory on unsold houses but over on the Kona side of the island it seems the number of house sales is up even if the prices are still low. The newly listed inventory on the Hilo side still seems to be outpacing the sold houses but the amount of newly listed to sold isn't as uneven as it was before. There seem to be a few more sales out there, too, although the prices are still low.

I've seen a few "help wanted" ads in windows, although those have been for jobs such as gas station or fast food workers.

Oh, also further down in the article, it was mentioned that the percentage of our Japanese tourists is now only one fifth of the total number of tourists whereas before it was one third. So this will have an impact on our tourism, but not as much as it would have been had it been several decades ago.

The earthquake will have some effects, but I don't think they will be as grim as one would think from that headline.

[AlohaHuey]

As Japan recovers, the Japanese tourists will come back. Give it a few months. They'll tire of rolling blackouts and want to escape.