Hotel revenues in May beat pre-pandemic numbers

Despite lower occupancy than 2019, county sees state-high room rates, revenues

Maui County hotels in May bested the state in high room rates and revenue per available room, which even surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 numbers, according to a recent report.

In Maui County, revenue per available room was $314, up 19.1 percent from 2019, and hotels the county had an average daily rate of $467, up 35.3 percent from 2019, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority's May 2021 Hawaii Hotel Performance Report issued last month.

Occupancy in Maui County, however, was down 9.1 percentage points from 2019, to 67.1 percent in May.

Visitor arrivals to Maui in May did not surpass pre-pandemic levels, as the island saw 215,148 visitors in May, compared with 251,665 in May 2019.

Statewide in May, revenue per available room was $177, down 12.3 percent from 2019. Average daily rates for hotel rooms across the state were $288, up 12.6 percent from 2019, but still far below Maui levels.

Statewide occupancy was 61.5 percent, down 17.5 percentage points from 2019.

Maui County's high numbers were led by its luxury resort region of Wailea, which had a revenue per available room of $439, down 0.2 percent from 2019, and an average daily rate of $717, which was up 41.5 percent from 2019.

But occupancy in the area was 61.2 percent, which was down 25.6 percentage points from May 2019.

The Lahaina, Kaanapali and Kapalua region had a revenue per available room of $267, which was up 21.1 percent in 2019, and an average daily rate of $391, up 33.4 percent in 2019. It had an occupancy rate of 68.4 percent, which was down 7 percentage points from 2019.

HTA also reported last month that Maui County had the largest vacation rental supply of all four counties in May with 234,400 available unit nights, down 16.9 percent from 2019. Unit demand was 175,800 unit nights, which was also down 18.1 percent from 2019. It resulted in 75 percent occupancy, down 1.1 percentage points from 2019.

The average daily rate for May was $257, which was down 35.2 percent from 2019.

Statewide, the average daily rate for vacation rental units statewide in May was $236.

In May, total monthly supply of statewide vacation rentals was 572,900 unit nights, and monthly demand was 413,500 unit nights. It resulted in an average monthly unit occupancy of 72.2 percent, which is higher than the occupancy of Hawaii's hotels with 61.5 percent occupancy rate in May.

Currently, the Maui County Council is mulling a bill that would cut the amount of short-term rental home permits on Maui. There are approximately 217 permitted short-term rental home operations in the county.

Molokai has cap of zero on short-term vacation rental permits and Lanai has a cap of 19.

Some council members have said that reducing short-term rentals would leave more housing inventory for residents, who have complained of vacation rentals disturbing rural communities without owners living on-site to handle unwanted incidents.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.