E Komo Mai: How Do We Reopen Hawaii to Travel?
This is part of a series of posts highlighting results from the Hawaii COVID Contact Tracking Survey conducted by the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC) and the Pacific Urban Resilience Lab (PURL) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The Hawaii Data Collaborative has partnered with this group to share regular analyses and updates from this survey in the coming weeks. If you have not done so already, we encourage you to participate in the survey here.
As far as economic drivers go, tourism is a behemoth making up nearly 20% of the state’s total economy. In 2019 alone, more than 10 million people visited the islands, spending approximately $18 billion and generating over $2 billion in state revenues. Moreover, the industries and monies generated on the coattails of the state’s largest industry are just as staggering.
So when the state shut down tourism in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic, it was not without considerable thought. The implications were and have been devastating. It’s estimated that in April during the shutdown, the number of nonagricultural jobs in the state decreased by 121,800 with a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 22.3%. The majority of these lost jobs (about 70,000) are in the Leisure and Hospitality industry. In terms of state revenue, the economic impacts from the pandemic translate into an 11% loss for March compared with revenue from the same month last year — approximately $55 million in lost revenue for March alone.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Hawaii ranks third in the nation in filing for unemployment benefits at over 340 initial claims made per 1,000 covered employment (Georgia and Kentucky were one and two in the nation over the period from March 15 to May 9). About 233,000 initial unemployment claims were filed in Hawaii from March 15 to May 16 — a number that represents over one-third of Hawaii’s labor force. And that may not be the worst of it. It’s projected that one in four businesses will shut its door permanently without additional support, based on a survey by the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce and the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization.
Getting the visitor industry back on its feet is one of the state’s top priorities. But how? Given what we know about the virulence of COVID-19, the risk of future outbreaks is clearly tied to movement of people and the introduction of large populations from outside the state.
In Hawaii, one-in-five jobs are in the accommodations and food service industry. This does not account for workers who come in contact with someone who works in the travel industry or with a large population of visitors themselves. But even with this limited segment of the population, we can see the large risk implications with the start-up of the visitor industry.
Based on our survey data, the risk of exposure is nearly 8 times greater among respondents who reported arriving in Hawaii (i.e., traveled outside of the state) within the past 14 days. Among those respondents, 46% said they may have been exposed to the virus, compared with 11% who did not travel in the past 14 days.
For households, the risk of exposure is also greater (4.6 times) for respondents who had a member of the household travel in the past 14 days. Among those respondents, 34% said they may have been exposed to the virus, compared with just 10% of respondents who didn’t have a household member who traveled in the past 14 days.
In addition, the risk of exposure is greater for domestic and international travel than for interisland travel. But the safest were those who did not travel nor had any member of their household who traveled (Figure 1).
This comes as no surprise, but it does support anecdotal information we have about the risk of traveling during a pandemic and what it could mean if and when we open the state back up to national and international travelers. Do we phase in travel with interisland first (as Governor Ige has suggested), then national and international traffic?
Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) shown together give a sense of the risk of exposure to COVID-19 for Hawaii residents. Among the countries within Hawaii’s major market areas for tourism (including the United States), Singapore, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Switzerland ranked in the top 5 for the number of COVID-19 cases per one million people.
Among these 5 countries, the United States has the largest number of annual visitors to Hawaii (over 6 million in 2018)—suggesting that the greatest risk of exposure comes from domestic tourism. Conversely, the countries with the fewest number of COVID-19 cases per one million people were Taiwan, China, and Japan. Among these three countries, Japan has the largest number of annual visitors to Hawaii (about 1.5 million in 2018). The risk of exposure to COVID-19 is smaller for tourism from Japan relative to domestic tourism (see Figure 2 and Map 1).
These are important considerations to weigh as we think about the best strategy to open up tourism in our state. In other words, the decision on whether to re-open the state to travel may not be a blanket one. Rather, it should be measured and deliberate, perhaps assessing the process market by market (e.g. the “travel bubble” with Japan as recently proposed). In addition, it will be a decision (or a series of decisions) that will not be made in a vacuum, but decisions that must also consider legal and constitutional ramifications for domestic travel and political and economic consequences for our international markets.
Related Posts in this Series
Insights From the Hawaii COVID Contact Tracking Survey
The Good, The Bad, and Social Distancing in Hawaii
Ongoing and Comprehensive Information Key to Reopening Hawaii
Our Kupuna: Understanding Their Risks
Contact Tracing versus Contact Tracking
How Vulnerable is Hawaii in the Face of a Coronavirus Pandemic?
Small Business May Play A Not-So-Small Part In Restarting Hawaii's Economy
Underlying Health Conditions and How they Impact Our Vulnerability in Hawaii
Family Ties: Are Hawaii's Multigenerational Households More At Risk?
