Hotel revenues continue to climb statewide

Hawaii’s strong tourism industry boosted the performance of hotels statewide in November with the neighbor islands in particular seeing a significant bump.

With visitor arrivals headed for their sixth straight record year, the revenue per available room, or RevPAR, increased 5.5 percent overall from the year-earlier period to about $190, according to a Hawaii hotel performance report released Thursday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

RevPAR, which is the price a hotelier gets per room regardless of its rental status, is considered by many in the industry as the best measure of performance.

The average daily rate (ADR) for hotels in the state gained 1.4 percent to about $243 last month while occupancy rose 3 percentage points to 78.5 percent.

“November was a good month for hotel properties as a whole,” said Jennifer Chun, HTA director of tourism research. “These across-the-board increases help support jobs and families in each county and generate increased state tax revenue, which ultimately helps to fund community needs statewide.”

Chun said “the biggest eye-opener” for November occurred statewide for mid-scale and economy class hotels where RevPAR for those combined categories jumped 18.4 percent and occupancy rose 10.1 percent.

“That kind of increase in occupancy is phenomenal considering that tourism in Hawaii has been thriving in recent years,” she said. “It’s a sign the industry did an effective job in attracting price-conscious travelers, especially to Oahu where the increase in occupancy (for midscale and economy hotels) was 12.9 percent.”

On the neighbor islands, Hawaii island and Kauai reported the strongest results.

The revenue per available room on Hawaii island soared 12.9 percent to $167.33 while the occupancy rate increased 10.8 percentage points to 73.2 percent. The average daily rate, though, dropped 3.8 percent to $228.45.

Kauai’s RevPAR rose 13 percent to $168.34, occupancy gained 5.6 percentage points to 72.5 percent and ADR increased 4.2 percent to $232.16.

On Maui the average daily rate gained 4.7 percent to $313.70, the highest of any island. RevPAR increased 6.5 percent to $235.77, and the occupancy rate rose 1.2 percentage points to 75.2 percent.

Oahu’s key numbers were slightly higher. RevPAR gained 2.3 percent to $179.97, occupancy edged up 1.5 percentage points to 82.1 percent — slightly below the 83.2 percent occupancy rate in Waikiki — and the ADR inched up 0.4 percent to $219.31.

“Year-to-date, hotel properties on the island of Hawaii and Kauai continue to report the strongest rate of growth in both RevPAR and occupancy,” Chun said. “The gap between these islands with hotel occupancies on Oahu and Maui has closed considerably this year.”