Hawaii vacation rental use rose in recent months

Hawaii’s short-term vacation rental industry completed a painful year with 42.8% occupancy in 2020 after accounting for supply reductions, a new report shows.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority released its year-end report on vacation rental use Monday, showing that occupancy increased over the last few months of 2020 and outperformed hotels.

Last year’s vacation rental market occupancy of 42.8% compared with 74.2% in 2019.

In recent months the figure rose from 8.8% in September to 22.7% in October, and then to 31.6% in November and 40.5% in December.

For Hawaii hotels, occupancy for all of last year was 37.1%, down from 80.8% in 2019.

However, the statewide occupancy figures for vacation rentals also are based on dramatically reduced supply, as unit owners removed many vacation rentals from the market amid the COVID-19 pandemic and various county restrictions on use.

Last year, Hawaii vacation rental inventory fell by 39.6% to 6 million available unit nights, the HTA report said. Unit nights are measured because some vacation rental properties are not available year- round or each day in a month.

The average daily rate for vacation rental units statewide was $238 last year, down 18% from $290 the year before. For hotels the average daily rate was $267 last year, down 6% from $283 the year before.

By island the vacation rental average daily rate last year was highest on Kauai at $297, followed by Maui at $293. The figure was $188 on Hawaii island and $184 on Oahu.

Occupancy last year was 42.4% on Maui and Oahu, 44.6% on Hawaii island and 41.5% on Kauai.

Vacation rental property owners have had to deal with depressed visitor arrivals amid the pandemic like hotel operators, but also have faced shifting restrictions on use by county officials.

For instance, a vacation rental ban on Oahu over COVID-19 was lifted in late October.

On the neighbor islands, vacation rentals have largely been allowed to operate since the middle of June as long as they were not being used as a quarantine location. However, Maui vacation rentals in December could be used only as a place of quarantine by interisland travelers awaiting their pre-travel coronavirus test results, the HTA report said.

HTA’s report was based on data compiled by Transparent Intelligence Inc.

The data in the report excludes units counted by HTA as hotel or timeshare units. A vacation rental is defined as the use of a rental house, condominium, private room in a residence, or a shared room or space in a residence. The report might include both permitted and unpermitted, or illegal, vacation rentals governed and defined by county regulations.