We finally had some time to digest HTA’s new 2026-2030 Strategic Plan, and there’s plenty to like, particularly the focus on accountability, resident sentiment and collaboration. The plan also doubles down on “Value Over Volume,” with the goal of visitor spending growing faster than arrivals. And to be fair, HTA’s definition of a high-value traveler goes well beyond simply attracting more luxury guests.
But it raises a pretty basic question: has anyone done the math on what the right volume actually is? We’re hotel people, not economists, so consider this very much back-of-the-envelope math. Using roughly 9.7 million visitors and $21 billion in annual spending as a benchmark, reducing arrivals to 8 million would require spending per visitor to increase about 21% to keep total visitor spending flat. Go much lower, and the hurdle gets considerably higher.
And, as we’ve written before, Hawaiʻi isn’t a luxury market. It’s a remarkably well-balanced market. Roughly 82% of our hotel inventory sits outside the luxury segment. That matters because replacing several mainstream visitors with one much higher-spending visitor might work on a spreadsheet, but that spending won’t necessarily flow to the same places. The casual restaurant, activity operator, retailer, rental-car company and midscale and economy hotels still need customers. Fewer visitors can mean fewer customers, fewer jobs and, taken far enough, fewer businesses.
None of this means Value Over Volume is the wrong strategy. Generating greater economic benefit without endlessly increasing arrivals makes a lot of sense. But less has consequences, particularly in a visitor economy built to serve a broad range of travelers. So before we decide less is better, we’d love to see the math: How much less? Where does the spending go? And what happens to the rest of Hawaiʻi’s tourism economy when the volume goes away?
