May hotel performance in Hawaii capped strong 5-month run

Hotel performance in May helped keep industry growth strong during the first five months of 2018.

In May, occupancy at hotels across the state averaged 79.5 percent, a gain of 1.5 percentage points from May 2017, according to a hotel performance report released Tuesday by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. The average daily rate (ADR) rose to $256 a night, a gain of just over 6 percent from May 2017.

HTA compiled the survey using data from STR Inc., which included 162 properties representing 48,519 rooms, or 89.8 percent of all lodging properties with 20 rooms or more in the Hawaiian Islands. Full-service, limited-service and condominium hotels were included.

The strong occupancy and ADR performance helped push revenue per available room (RevPAR) up more than 8 percent from May 2017 to $203. RevPAR is an important gain since many in the hotel industry consider the measure, which is the price that each hotel room earns regardless of its occupancy status, the best performance predictor.

Jennifer Chun, HTA tourism research director, said in a statement, “May was a good month for Hawaii’s hotel industry, as everything was up on a statewide basis with the four counties reporting growth in RevPAR and ADR and all classes of hotel properties performing well.”

Despite the April flooding on Kauai, which has continued to affect the north shore region, Kauai hotels earned the state’s highest growth in May RevPAR, which rose nearly 15 percent to $214. The RevPAR results were boosted by an occupancy gain of nearly 3 percentage points to just over 78 percent and an ADR gain of more than 10 percent to $273.

May occupancy on Hawaii island, which has been dealing with volcanic activity on the east side since May 3, was flat. But the county reported that RevPAR rose more than 5 percent to $166 and ADR increased nearly 6 percent to $235.

Maui County hotels reported the highest RevPAR for May at $259, which was a nearly 10 percent gain from May 2017. ADR increased almost 10 percent to $341 to offset a flat occupancy of 75.9 percent.

Oahu, which has struggled to add to its already high occupancy, experienced a gain of 2.2 percentage points in May occupancy, which rose to 83.3 percent. Oahu’s RevPAR increased nearly 7 percent to $187, and its ADR grew nearly 4 percent to $225.

“The results for Waikiki and Wailea were particularly notable, with both regions generating high occupancy along with solid growth in RevPAR and ADR, and hotels on the island of Hawaii did well overall during the month of May,” Chun said.

Year-to-date through May, hotels statewide saw RevPAR rise to $230, a nearly 9 percent gain from the first five months of 2017. Through May ADR rose to $281, up more than 6 percent from the same period in 2017. Occupancy rose to 81.7 percent, a gain of 1.8 percentage points from the first five months of 2017. All four counties were still reporting growth in all three performance categories through May.