Credit Suisse comments on Hawaii Tourism

Credit Suisse analysts recently commented on the situation with tourism in Hawaii and Hyatt:

While travel and tourism to Hawaii were hard hit during the downturn, we believe trends
have recovered considerably in recent periods and this point of the cycle represents an
attractive opportunity for Hyatt to increase its penetration into the market…..
We note that Hawaii has also benefited from strength in Asian economies and a weak
dollar which has helped inbound demand from international tourists. According the
Hawaiian Tourism Authority, year-to-date through August 2010 total arrivals into Maui
increased 8.1% to 1.4m people, the largest gain among all the major islands. Total visitor
expenditures have also increased a more impressive 18% to $2.0bn…..
While international visitors only accounted for about 14% of traffic to Maui, visitation has
increased 21.5% year-to-date…. For the first eight months of 2010, fewer total visitors came to Hawaii for conventions (-8.6%), but more came for corporate meetings (+7.3%) and traveled on
incentives (+10.7%) compared to the prior period.