Dec. 13—The 315-room Queen Kapi 'olani Hotel in Waikiki has been acquired by Financial Products Group Co., a financial services group in Japan that is publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The 315-room Queen Kapi 'olani Hotel in Waikiki has been acquired by Financial Products Group Co., a financial services group in Japan that is publicly traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The hotel, at 150 Kapahulu Ave., was built in the 1960s and underwent a $35 million renovation in 2018 to upgrade and modernize the guest rooms with retro-chic styling and art while honoring Queen Kapi 'olani through an art gallery above the lobby.

No price was disclosed for the purchase.

Honolulu-based commercial real estate company Cushman &Wakefield Chaney Brooks facilitated the purchase of the hotel.

"The purchase of the Queen Kapi 'olani Hotel by our client, FPG, signifies the importance of Hawaii for Japanese investors, " said Steve Sombrero, president of Cushman &Wakefield Chaney Brooks, and Cushman &Wakefield senior real estate adviser Kohei Hakamada, the brokers representing the buyers in the transaction.

"Although visitor arrivals from Japan and Asia have not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, there is no doubt in our minds that we are about to see an explosive growth in international visitor arrivals to Hawaii in the coming weeks and months. For this reason, the acquisition of the Queen Kapi 'olani Hotel could not have been timelier."

There were only 134, 873 visitors from Japan who visited Hawaii through the first 10 months of this year, according to the most recent data from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. That was down 89.7 % from the pre-COVID-19 year of 2019 when there were 1.3 million visitors.

However, in October alone there were 24, 339 Japanese visitors, more than 13 times the 1, 842 visitors who came to Hawaii in October 2021.

FPG said the purchase of the Queen Kapi 'olani Hotel is the Japanese firm's second international real estate investment project following the acquisition of a large-scale multifamily residential complex in Elmsford, N.Y., in May.