KAILUA-KONA — The final month of summer treated Hawaii Island hoteliers well.
“August was our best month we’ve had in a long time and the numbers even beat 2017 August numbers,” said Ross Birch, executive director of the Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau.
Kauai hotels saw higher occupancy.
Occupancy islandwide was 80.9% during August with the Kohala Coast reporting 84.3% of rooms on the Gold Coast occupied during the 31-day month, data released this week by the Hawaii Tourism Authority shows. Last year, just 69.1% of rooms were filled on the island, with the Kohala Coast area faring worse with an occupancy rate of 63.3%, down from 2017 when both areas reported occupancy at 72.6%.
“The large increase we had for August year-over-year is truly really the lack that we had last year,” said Birch.
In August 2019, Hawaii hotels statewide reported growth in revenue per available room (RevPAR), average daily rate (ADR) and occupancy compared to August 2018. However, it should be noted that August 2018’s performance was impacted in part by concerns related to Hurricane Lane.
According to the Hawai‘i Hotel Performance Report published by the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, statewide RevPAR increased to $244 (+10.7%), with ADR of $290 (+3.4%) and occupancy of 84.3 percent (+5.5 percentage points) in August.
In August, Hawai‘i hotel room revenues statewide grew by 8.6 percent to $408.7 million, which is $32.5 million higher than last year. Room demand was up 5.0 percent to 1.4 million rooms, with supply down 1.8 percent compared to a year ago. There were approximately 31,500 fewer available room nights. Several hotel properties across the state were closed for renovation or had rooms out of service for renovation during August.
Kauai hotels reported flat RevPAR of $213 (+0.2%) in August, with higher occupancy (74.4%, +1.9 percentage points) offsetting a decrease in ADR to $286 (-2.3%).
The hotel and tourism industries took major hits from natural disasters as both appeared to be taking off, posting record-breaking numbers for the first four months of 2018.
August numbers were particularly impacted by Kilauea Volcano’s eruption that for three months spewed lava, destroying hundreds of homes and forever changing the island’s landscape, before subsiding mid-month, as well as Hurricane Lane, which deluged windward areas, dumping more than 50 inches over Mountain View, and prompted rescues and caused heavy damage.
