Home » America Travel News » Hawaii Faces Tourism Data Crisis Amid Digital Overhaul, With Key Visitor Trends and Economic Impact Data Lost for the First Time in Decades Published on
November 8, 2025Hawaii is facing an unexpected challenge during the 75th anniversary of its in-flight visitor survey, a long-standing pillar of tourism data collection in the state. An eight-month disruption, caused by a transition to digital systems, has resulted in a significant gap in tracking key visitor trends, leaving state officials grappling with the absence of essential data that helps shape Hawaii’s tourism landscape.Akamai Arrival Program’s Disruption to Data CollectionThe disruption began on March 1, 2025, when Hawaii launched the Akamai Arrival program, which aimed to digitize agricultural declaration forms. Traditionally, these forms included tourism-related questions, such as visitor spending habits, length of stay, and travel origin, crucial for understanding the state’s visitor trends. However, during the pilot phase of the program, these tourism questions were removed, leaving officials without the usual in-depth data.Advertisement Although the pilot phase ended on May 31, 2025, Hawaii has yet to fully implement a digital solution to replace the lost survey data. As a result, Hawaii’s ability to track crucial visitor statistics, such as demographic details and spending patterns, has been severely compromised. This data gap has left tourism experts and policymakers uncertain about the state of the tourism sector.GoHawaii App: A Future Solution in DevelopmentTo address the data void, Hawaii’s Tourism Authority (HTA) has unveiled plans for the GoHawaii app, a new digital tool that will integrate agricultural declarations and tourism questions. The app, currently under development, is expected to be fully operational by early 2026. While this initiative holds promise for modernizing the state’s tourism data collection, it has not yet been launched, leaving a considerable gap in the meantime.While the GoHawaii app is a hopeful solution, it has not yet replaced the detailed data traditionally gathered through the visitor survey, which tracked essential metrics like spending, length of stay, and activity preferences. For now, the state continues to rely on an assortment of data sources to fill the gap, but these alternatives fall short of providing the accuracy and depth that the traditional survey once delivered.Temporary Measures: Piecin …
