Hawaii Has Nation's Highest Hotel Room Rates in May 2014

According to a report issued by Hospitality Advisors LLC, the state of Hawaii had the nation's highest hotel room rates in May 2014.  In May, the average daily rate was $218.64 and statewide the hotel occupancy was 72.7 percent.  The revenue per available room was $158.95.  Oahu continued to have the highest occupancy with 80.5 percent of their rooms filled.  Kauai came in second with 70.8 percent occupancy.  Maui had 67.3 percent and Hawaii Island (Big Island) had 53.2 percent occupancy rates.  Joe Toy, the president and CEO of Hospitality Advisors, commented, "The gap in occupancy between Oahu and Hawaii island is still more than 20 percentage points, but I think by 2015 we'll see that recovery has spread across all islands. It's still a very respectable market, but it's a different one than it was in 2013. Because there was so much pent-up demand last year, people were booking well in advance. The high occupancy filled in the shoulder seasons and caused more travelers to consider a neighbor island," he said. "Now the number of people booking hotels 90 days (before arrival) has softened. We are seeing more booking pickup 45 to 30 days out. With some of the pricing concerns, we should start to see some activity on Hawaii island, which is still a good deal. " 

Jerry Gibson, the area vice president for Hilton Hawaii, added, "We were pretty happy with the last two months. April is normally a pretty heavy convention month, and we had some of those. We also filled it in with good government business and a little bit of leisure travel." However, I don't think that April and May are necessarily indicators of where we'll go. In September we'll figure out if the back of the year will remain solid and if the Asian markets will keep up. Everybody has their conventions in place for the end of the third and last quarters, but the unknown is how the wholesale business will come in. We're hoping that it continues to get better."

Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 7-23-2014, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Principal Broker, REALTOR®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
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