Maui County time-share occupancy at 90 percent for 2017’s 3rd quarter
By contrast, Maui’s hotel occupancy was 77.9 percent
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The Maui News
Maui County's time-share properties averaged 90.8 percent occupancy during the July-to-September quarter, which was slightly down from the third quarter of 2016, according to the Hawai'i Tourism Authority's Hawaii Timeshare Quarterly Report.
The average occupancy for the quarter was 1.7 percentage points down from the previous year, according to the report of 51 participating properties, which represent 80 percent of time-share units statewide.
By contrast, Maui's hotel occupancy was 77.9 percent, according to the report released Thursday.
"With so much public dialogue about Hawaii lodging focused on hotels and alternative accommodations, the impact of time-share properties tends to get overlooked," said Jennifer Chun, HTA's director of tourism research. "Time-share visitors consistently fill up resort properties on a year-round basis, their average stay is longer than other visitors, and owners pay more in taxes."
She said Hawaii is one of the few visitor destinations that consider time-share properties a "traditional accommodation." The time-share industry "has a major influence on tourism's overall success and Hawaii's ability to attract repeat visitors," she said.
The appeal of time shares also is expanding to Japan, Chun added.
Time-share visitors to Maui County totaled 83,167 during the quarter -- 11.8 percent of all visitor arrivals on Maui during the quarter, the report said. Maui time-share visitors spent an average of 8.8 days in the county.
In a breakdown of the kinds of Maui time-share visitors in the quarter, 55 percent were owner-occupants, 21.8 percent were an exchange and 13.7 percent were transient occupancy, the lowest share among all islands, the report said.
The HTA reported that time-share properties in Maui County brought in $6.4 million in state and county taxes in the quarter. Property taxes to the county amounted to $2.4 million of the total.
County time-share properties showed a 2.7 percent increase in the total number of resort operations employees and a 3.1 percent increase in the number of sales and marketing employees during the quarter. The increase was driven by the 195-unit Westin Nanea Ocean Villas, which opened in April and was new to the survey in the third quarter.
Maui time-share properties providing survey data reported total payroll expense of $30 million during the quarter.
HTA's Hawaii Timeshare Quarterly Report was prepared by Kloninger & Sims Consulting LLC. The time-share survey findings for the third quarter were based on data provided by 51 time-share properties representing 82.8 percent of Hawaii's 11,233 time-share units statewide.