Hawaii Island hotel occupancy continues to trend upward toward pre-pandemic levels.
Hotels on the Orchid Isle in February reported occupancy of 77.9%, up from 71.6% in January and 73.5% in December 2021, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority data released last week. In February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold shuttering entire resorts, Hawaii Island hotels reported a recorded-breaking 84.4% occupancy for the month.
“Hawaii is pretty hot right now,” said Eddie Brown, manager at Kona Tiki Hotel, a small waterfront hotel in Kailua-Kona. “Everyone wants to get out of town and Hawaii is pretty inexpensive with flights.”
On the coveted Kohala Coast, occupancy in February hovered at 75.6%, below February 2020’s 83.2% rate.
Craig Anderson, vice president of resort operations at the Mauna Kea Resort, agreed that people just flat out need to get away. He estimated in late March the resort’s occupancy rate reached into the high 80s.
“It’s the pent up demand,” he said. “People have been held up in their homes, travel has been restricted and people are anxious to get out and re-charge their batteries.”
In addition, hotels on the island are raking in the dough with the average daily rate for a room in February at $403, which is up 28.3% from February 2020. On the Kohala Coast, the daily rate last month was $622, up over 36% from 2020.
Kohala Coast resorts reported an average daily rate at about $622 and revenue of nearly $323. In February 2020, rooms averaged $456 per day with revenue per room coming out around $323.
Revenue during February for all hotels on Hawaii Island was listed at $61.7 million, up from $18.6 million in February 2021 and $46.5 million in February 2020. Statewide, hotels reported some $393.7 million in revenue last month.
Despite the cost increase, customers were willing to pay it.
“Hotels are expensive across the board. There’s so many people coming here. We’ve been sold out,” Brown continued. One night at the Tiki Hotel is listed around $300.
Having waited three years to finally make it to Hawaii, cost really didn’t matter for one couple staying at the Royal Kona Resort last week ahead of the last of the state’s COVID-19 travel restrictions winding down on Saturday.
“We we’re supposed to be here three years ago but then COVID kicked in, so we got setback,” said Connie, a woman in her 50s, who asked her full name be revoked from the story. “We were initially going to take a cruise here, but prices doubled. So we flew down instead and decided to do our own thing.”
Statewide, the hotel occupancy rate hovered at 72.1% in February, down from 2020 when 84.7% of the state’s hotel rooms were occupied. Across the state, occupancy rates were 71.2% on Oahu, 69% in Maui County and 78.3% on Kauai, giving the Big Island the highest rate in the Aloha State.
Vacation rentals also reported increases in occupancy and average daily rate during February, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority. During February, 77.1% of the Big Island’s units were occupied and the average daily rate of a unit was about $215, up from about $180 before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in spring 2020.