Letter: Short-term vacation rentals hurting economy

In a recent commentary (“More vacation rentals would undercut tourism revenue,” Island Voices, Star-Advertiser, March 28), I highlighted data published by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism that showed growth of vacation rentals was hurting our economy — primarily that, despite significant growth in visitor arrivals, from 2008 to 2017, adjusted per capita visitor spending had decreased.

Now, new data provided by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) further supports that contention (“Hawaii visitor arrivals in March grew from last year, but spending fell,” Star-Advertiser, April 26).

For the first quarter of 2018, HTA reported, visitor arrivals were up nearly 3%, the number of airline seats up nearly 2%, while average per-capita visitor spending declined nearly 5%.

A HTA board member commented that vacation rentals typically produce less visitor spending. One hospitality executive was quoted as saying, “Over the long run, success means bringing higher-spending people to Hawaii … ”

The experts and the data are confirming that vacation rentals, as an alternative to full-service hotels, are truly an economic race to the bottom.

Chuck Prentiss

Kailua

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