Aug
19
The newly-revised economic forecast from the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism is superficially encouraging, but on closer reading it’s a little on the ominous side.
This is what it predicts for 2008:
- Visitor arrivals down 6.7% from last year, which would still mean 7 million plus visitors.
- Real personal income up 0.4%, half of what was last predicted, but still keeping ahead of inflation.
- Consumer prices, as represented by the Honolulu consumer price index, up 4.5%, more than previously expected due to high energy prices.
- Job growth 0.2%, half of what was formerly expected, but growth is growth.
- Hawaii real GDP (gross domestic product) annual growth speed of 1.9%, with 2% or close to it expected in each of the following three years.
No recession, no “negative growth” in any area, but, and this is the ominous bit, it all flows from an expectation of visitor arrivals down 6.7%.
And visitor arrivals are currently down more than twice that much.
Hawaii passenger airlift is down more than 13% from last year, and if anything it will get worse in the coming shoulder season.
The state’s seers may see things I don’t, but it seems reasonable to point out that it is possible for visitor tallies to come in below official expectations, and that would skew most of the other numbers lower.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Posts
