Last week, we blogged about the fantastic Maui hotels that made the Conde Nast Traveler’s Gold List. Two of them were located on beautiful oceanfront South Maui properties. The outcome was a triumph, to be sure, but what about Maui hotel performance in relation to the economy? A recent report from Hospitality Advisors LLC and Smith Travel Research bears good news.
During the week that ended on December 14th, Hawaii hotel occupancy was up 7.5 percent compared to the same week last year. Hotels were 71.6 percent full. Average daily room rates went up 5 percent to $185. Those are the numbers for the state, but Maui itself had the largest increase in occupancy of any of the islands with a 17 percent jump compared to the same week last year. Hotels here were 73.6 percent occupied, which was higher than the state average. What’s interesting is that Maui generally has the highest average daily room rate of the islands, but during the aforementioned week, those rates fell by 5 percent to $204.30. This is still about $20 per night higher than the neighbor islands’ averages.
Only Oahu’s average daily room rates went up, with a 12 percent increase to $180.98. Occupancy was up 5.6 percentage points to 80.8 percent. It’s a busy island. Kauai hotels increased 5.7 percent in occupancy to 47.7 percent, which is still extremely low. Room rates were up 3.2 percent to $188.80 per night. Lastly, the Big Island saw a 1.2 percent drop in occupancy to 49.7 percent and a 7.4 drop in average daily room rates to $165.47.
Overall, Maui’s report for that week was the most encouraging, but as with Maui real estate, we like to remind readers to put more weight into long term trends for reliable information. In these small island markets, a few changes can influence the whole quite a lot, whereas statistics with large markets are steadier.
Like we mentioned in our last blog, this kind of progress is good for the economy, and good for real estate. Visitors who are sufficiently enjoy their trips to Maui often decide they want to live here permanently. How can we blame them? Maui is our favorite place in the world. If you need any assistance finding a home here, we’d be happy to help. You can find our contact information at the bottom of the page. Mahalo!
