Total expenditures by visitors who came to Hawaii in March 2012 rose 18.9 percent (or $185.8 million) to $1.17 billion, according to preliminary statistics released today by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. This marked the 22nd consecutive month of year-over-year growth in total visitor expenditures since May 2010. A 12.9 percent growth in total visitor arrivals [...]

  The Huffington Post is reporting that a company linked to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to build a bullet train to the casinos of Las Vegas.   Privately held DesertXpress is “on the verge” of landing a $4.9 billion loan from the Obama administration to build the 150 mph train that would take [...]

  More foreign tourists than ever came to the United States last year, and spent a record amount along the way, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.   The number of foreign tourists hit a record 62 million last year, up 4 percent from 2010, the department said in a statement.   Foreign visitors spent [...]

Some good news for Europe this month: Trans-Atlantic is reporting that travel from the Americas to Europe increased in February by an average 2.5 percent on the leading carriers on a daily basis (February, of course, had an extra day this year). That may decline when results for other carriers are added later this month, [...]

The recently released end-of-year report compiled by independent firm Smith Travel Research (STR) placed Puerto Rico fourth in 2011 hotel occupancy in the Americas, behind Chile, Uruguay and Curacao.   The city of San Juan ranked fifth in hotel occupancy among cities in the Americas behind Miami, New York, Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco, [...]

Total expenditures by visitors who came to Hawaii in January 2012 rose 13.9 percent (or $164.1 million) from January 2011, to just over $1.3 billion, according to preliminary statistics released by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. This was the best one-month total on record, surpassing the December 2011 high of $1.298 billion.   Contributing to the [...]

Great news for Spain this morning: Almost 2.8 million foreign tourists came to Spain last month, a 4.6 percent increase on January 2011, according to ThinkSpain.com.   These latest figures compiled by Frontur show an increase of 122,000 foreign visitors in January 2012 compared with the same month the previous year, and suggests that the [...]

Monterey, Calif.: Pebble Beach is as amazing as its reputation suggests. And yes, Cypress Point is even more spectacular and breathtaking. Throw in a few other rounds at Spyglass, Poppy Hills or Monterey Peninsula Country Club and have yourself a bowl – or 10 – of clam chowder from the Old Fisherman’s Grotto on the [...]

What doesn’t change about Italy is that it’s always changing. In 2012 some long-closed doors are opening again. Historic sights, newly scrubbed and restored, are coming out from behind scaffolding. A few more monuments are still under wraps, but getting closer to completion. Italy is revealing itself anew (or molting).   The scaffolding that has [...]

For Las Vegas travel, 2011 was almost a record-breaking year. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau announced that Las Vegas attracted 38.9 million visitors in 2011, the second highest total in history and just shy of the all-time record high of 39.2 million set in 2007.   “We were just shy of 39 million [...]