17-05-2025
Going digital: New digital tourism survey to launch in June
HONOLULU (KHON2) — A new digital push is taking off in Hawaii, this time aimed at understanding our visitors better.
After a promising run with the digital agricultural forms, the state is preparing to launch a digital tourism survey that could better support Hawaii's economic future.
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They come for the sun, surf and aloha spirit, but state officials are hoping that Hawaii visitors leave behind something just as valuable as their vacation dollars, something as simple as data.
Next month, the state will roll out a digital tourism survey, similar to the paper survey you're asked to fill out on flights, but accessible on your smart phones or laptops. It's the latest chapter in embracing technology to better manage the impacts of travel and tourism.
'We used to get between 70 and 80 percent of people filling it out. So, we hope to get the same. Now it's digital, so it's real quick and you don't have to go ask your neighbors for a pen,' said James Tokioka, the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism tourism survey follows the state's digital agricultural declaration form that was launched in March. The pilot project has proven successful.
In a statement from the lieutenant governor, when the pilot started the form had around a 60% compliance rate compared to recent weeks' compliance rate of around 74%. The pilot included 30% of the airlines participating.
Due to the success, the pilot program will be extended at least to the end of the year and to add more airlines.
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'We'll get 50% of the airlines, and then after that, we'll just try to get as many as we can, till we get 100% of them,' Tokioka said.
But for the last three months of the pilot project, survey data has been missing. A gap that state officials say was intentional to focus on the agricultural form participation numbers. But officials say that data is now up to date.
'For the forecasters now, all of that data has been back filled. So all of that data is there now. So for the three month period, how it affected it? It affected it at that time. But now we're getting the daily counts,' Tokioka said.
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State Senator Glenn Wakai, a longtime supporter of the digital forms, said that even without perfect response rate the state could benefit from the data.
'With tourism data, you don't need 100 percent response rate. You can extrapolate from a 60 percent response rate as to what is compelling people to come here, and how much they're spending here,' Wakai said.
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The state says the survey remains voluntary and isn't just about convenience, it's about control– being able to predict trends and plan for things such as infrastructure investments. They also intend to update the exit survey for international visitors to get more valuable data.
'Hawaii has the best tourism data in the nation, because Hawaii is the only state that mandates this kind of information,' Wakai said. 'This is something that is unique to Hawaii that we should really capitalize on, take ownership of it and make it better with digitization.'
Paper forms are available as backups for passengers who do not have devices to complete the forms.
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