HONOLULU (KHON2) – Oahu’s hotel industry has been recovering since the spring break. Industry experts believe that Interisland travel will bring another big boost, especially to the neighboring islands.

The city and county of Honolulu have taken on the lion’s share of tourism recently, attracting nearly 386,000 visitors since March. That’s nearly half of the state’s 900,000 visitors.

The tourism industry prepares for further travel between countries after the governor announced that it would ease restrictions on vaccinated Hawaiian residents.

“I think it will help get people off the islands to visit the Outer Islands and have some of those Outer Island vacations and it will help the economy get going,” said Jerry Agrusa, professor for management of the travel industry at UH Manoa.

On the Island of Hawaii, the Royal Kona Resort usually welcomes more visitors to the neighboring island on the weekends.

“Overall, I think it’s a fantastic step in the right direction. We have quite a few family members and friends who come and stay and workers,” said General Manager Jay Rubenstein.

The hotel says it’s been doing well since the holiday season and is 100% busy.

But if the vaccination record program is effective and ultimately applied to trans-Pacific travel, how many arrivals are too many? The state has recorded an average of over 22,000 arrivals in the past seven days.

“There is a feeling that we all understand that the islands work because of tourism, but is it responsible tourism and what is the right number?” Rubenstein considered. “But the demand is there and we want the customer to experience the Aloha spirit.”

Agrusa argues that the state was accepting too many visitors before the pandemic, and while that has changed over the past year, it’s about the quality of the stay, rather than the number.

“We don’t need 10 million tourists, we don’t need that number. What we need is 7 million 500 thousand would be my planned number, but we need these people to stay a little longer and spend more money. “