Whale Watching Worldwide

$35 on other islands
Estimated employment
330
numbers:
Main whale watch season: December to April
Hawaiian Islands (Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai) ‐ Whale watching – humpback whales
Year Number of
whale
watchers
AAGR Number of
operators
Direct
expenditure
2008 330,000 N/A 50 $11,000,000
Indirect
expenditure
$74,000,000
Total
expenditure
$85,000,000
During the months of December through April, many of the North Pacific humpback whales that spend the
northern summer feeding in Alaska and the Bering Sea migrate to the Hawaiian Islands to mate and raise
their calves in warm, shallow waters – estimated at 10,000 whales. In 1992, the United States Congress
created the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary in the waters around the main
Hawaiian islands (Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai), centred on Maui. Oahu has the longest running whale
watching industry, going back more than 35 years, but whale watching didn’t become popular in the
Hawaiian islands until it spread to Maui in 1975. Maui accounts for more than half of the total whale
watcher volume and revenue generated by all four main islands.
Maui’s whale watching communities are located at Lahaina and Ma’alaea, and to a lesser extent in Kihei,
Mala Wharf and Ka’anapali beach. On the big island of Hawaii, whale watching operators are to be found at
Kailua‐Kona, Keauhou Bay, Honokohau Harbor, and the Kohala Coast. On Kauai whale watching businesses
operate principally from Port Allen, with a few remaining in Hanalei, and in Oahu from Honolulu Harbor and
the Kewalo Basin.
The four month duration of the humpback whales’ presence in Hawaiian waters enables a substantial whale
watching season. Each year more than 50 vessels take approximately 330,000 patrons on dedicated whale
watching tours, providing more than 270 jobs during the season and generating approximately $9.5 million
in direct expenditure. In addition, humpback whales factor significantly in the appeal of other tours (dinner
cruises, ecotours, etc) (Utech, 2000) and of general tourism in Maui, due to its central location in the
Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary (Markrich, 2004).
There is considerable opportunistic whale watching in Hawaii, but given the difficulty of measuring the
economic value of such activity, it has generally been omitted from this report. One exception is the
snorkelling tours around Maui during whale season. Snorkelling tours emphasise the possibility of seeing
whales in marketing material, and patrons surveyed reported whale watching as being a significant incentive
in purchasing these tours (Utech). A proportion of revenue from snorkelling tours around Maui during the
whale season has been included here as opportunistic revenue.
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