Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism

Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority — The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii has named Riley Saito as its new executive director.

Governor Josh Green, M.D., has released $6.3 million to DBEDT to support a tourism recovery campaign to address the continued economic impacts from the August 2023 Maui wildfires and the expected downturn due to the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.

According to preliminary statistics from DBEDT, there were 910,055 visitors to the Hawaiian Islands in December 2024, a 5.5 percent growth compared to the same month last year.

DBEDT today announced that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December was 3.0 percent, compared to 2.9 percent for the previous six consecutive months.

Office of Planning and Sustainable Development — DBEDT is proud to announce that Hawaii has become the nation’s first statewide economic development district (EDD), a designation approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration.

DBEDT's Creative Industries Division Hawaii today released a request for proposals toward the development of small, mid-sized and microbudget film and creative media projects.

According to preliminary statistics from DBEDT, there were 770,940 visitors to the Hawaiian Islands in November 2024, growth of 5.3 percent compared to the same month last year.

DBEDT today announced that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for November was 2.9 percent, the same for the sixth consecutive month.

Hawaii residents are invited to hone high-demand creative industry skills with two production courses set for Spring 2025, offered through the University of Hawaii Community Colleges' Good Jobs Hawaii initiative in collaboration with DBEDT's Creative Industries Division.

DBEDT released its fourth quarter 2024 Statistical and Economic Report today. In the report, DBEDT raised its economic growth projections for 2024 to 1.6 percent and kept the 2025 economic growth rate at 2.0 percent, the same as projected in the previous quarter.