On any given day, more than 229,000 tourists are spread out across Hawaiʻi. These days, the typical tourist is likely coming from the continental U.S. They’ve probably been to the islands before. And they’re usually here for a little more than a week.  

There was once a time when about 1 in 4 tourists on Oʻahu was from Japan. In 2019, almost 1.5 million people — 24% of the total tourism traffic that year and more than any country outside the U.S. — came from the island nation.

But that’s not the case anymore, according to data from the Hawaiʻi Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. Over the last six years, the number of people traveling to Oʻahu from Japan dropped by roughly 50%. Last year, only about 1 in 8 tourists visiting the island was from Japan — a total of just over 715,000 people.

Statewide, the origin of Hawaiʻi tourists has fluctuated in the last decade. International tourism, while largely on the rise, has been slow to rebound after the pandemic. The number of foreign travelers coming to the Hawaiian islands crashed by 95%, falling from roughly 3 million in 2019 to just over 148,000 in 2021. The number of tourists from abroad remains about half of what it was before Covid-19. Visitors from countries including Korea, Canada and Australia still aren’t back to their pre-pandemic numbers. 

Tourism from the rest of the U.S., however, rebounded quickly and rose to beyond pre-pandemic numbers as early as 2022. The number of domestic travelers coming from other states was up 40% last year compared to a decade earlier — from 5.3 million in 2015 to 7.4 million in 2025.

Where People Come From Influences Where They Go 

Data shows that international visitors are often drawn to different parts of the state than tourists from the mainland. 

People coming from abroad are more likely to stick to Oʻahu. Only about 1 in 7 visitors to the Big Island last year came from outside the country. On Maui, it’s about 1 in 8. International tourism is particularly sparse on Kauaʻi where 1 in11 visitors were from abroad. Compare that to Oʻahu, where more than 1 in 4 tourists last year were international, mostly from Japan, Canada and elsewhere in Asia, including Korea, China and Singapore.

While Lānaʻi and Molokaʻi received the fewest tourists – about 43,000 and 30,000 respectively –  they do buck the trend on neighbor islands in terms of visitor origin. About 1 in 4 travelers to each of those two islands visited from outside the U.S. 

On the flipside, the vast majority of visitors to neighbor islands traveled across the Pacific from somewhere in the U.S. More than 90% of the tourists on Kauaʻi last year – almost 1.3 million people – were from other states. On Maui, fellow U.S. residents made up 85% of visitors last year, totaling about 2.1 million. The Big Island received more than 1.4 million travelers from the U.S. last year.

Oʻahu dwarfs the other islands with more than 5.5 million total visitors – including nearly 4 million who flew to the island from elsewhere in the U.S. 

Last year, California topped the charts for the most visitors to Hawaiʻi from any other state. More than two-thirds of all tourists coming from the mainland were from the Golden State, more than 2.7 million people. Washington comes in second with about 695,000 travelers, followed by Texas, Oregon and Colorado. The top 10 states make up almost three-fourths of all visitors. Vermont sent the fewest travelers of any state – just 6,863 people last year. 

“Data Dive” is supported in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation.