There are two general types of passenger activities occurring at Oahu's port facilities: cruise ship (domestic, foreign and inter-island) and excursion boat.  Although cruise ships of foreign or domestic origin/destination call at Honolulu Harbor, and passengers disembark for short stays, the inter-island cruise ship market--weekly cruises around the islands--has historically dominated this industry.  According to the HDACS, the annual number of total passengers (boarding and disembarking) between 1984 and 1994 ranged from a low of 150,689 in 1993 to a high of 190,130 in 1989, with a median of about 167,000 (see Figure 1).  Inter-island cruise ship passengers comprised 80% to 93% of these totals.  However, with only two vessels operating in this market over this time period, there is essentially a fixed capacity.  Because of this restriction, there was no growth in this market, although increases in socioeconomic indicators that one might reasonably expect to correlate with cruise ship demand, such as visitor arrivals and expenditures, suggest growth in latent demand.

Excursion or "dinner cruise" boats operate out of both Honolulu Harbor and Kewalo Basin.  The cruises last a few hours, often include meals and entertainment, and are popular with tourists.  Since excursion boat operators do not pay fees based on passenger counts to Harbors Division, as do cruise ship operators, comprehensive data were not readily available on the annual number of excursion boat passengers.  Attempts to obtain comprehensive data directly from the excursion boat operators were not successful.

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