By

POSTED: Thursday, January 15, 2009
                       

This story has been corrected. See below.

Travelers might have gobbled turkey in November, but they sure didn't scarf up Hawaii hotel rooms with the same gluttony.

               

     

 

Hotel occupancy         Occupancy rates at Hawaii hotels in November and the same month last year:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         2008 2007 Statewide 63.0% 72.0% By island Oahu 68.5% 73.9% Kauai 60.9% 74.0% Maui 60.5% 73.4% Big Island 50.1% 62.2%         Source: Hospitality Advisors LLC

Hawaii hotels continued to suffer in November as hotel occupancy across the islands dropped 9 percentage points, the ninth straight month of market contraction, according to the latest Hawaii Hotel Flash Report released yesterday by Hospitality Advisors LLC.

Along with falling visitor arrivals, statewide hotel occupancy declined to 63 percent for the month of November, the report said. Hoteliers discounted rooms and offered an array of value-added amenities to get heads on beds; however, occupancy fell by double digits on all islands except for Oahu.

While some segments of Hawaii's visitor industry saw a small pickup in weekly travel as a result of the Thanksgiving holiday, overall the industry experienced staggering losses from the previous year.

Oahu sold the most hotel rooms in the state; however, the 68.5 percent occupancy level was still 5.4 percentage points below the 2007 level.

Nationwide, Thanksgiving travel experienced modest declines this year as compared to the year ago, but Hawaii's distance made it more difficult to capitalize on holiday trends.

The lure of relatives and low-priced offers enticed some kamaaina to take a ferry or a flight to visit the neighbor islands, but the bargains did little to entice more visitors to Hawaii, said Barry Wallace, executive vice president of hospitality services for Outrigger Enterprises.

Still, Hawaii's visitor industry attempted to make the best of what it had to offer. The industry marketed heavily to kamaaina and to travelers from nearby destinations like San Francisco and Los Angeles. Hoteliers and wholesalers offered all kinds of incentives ranging from free room nights, free food, resort credits and free rental cars.

“;We dropped prices down to three nights for $349 including air and we had one of our better weeks to Hawaii from the West Coast,”; said Jack E. Richards, president and chief executive of Hawaii's largest wholesaler Pleasant Holidays.

In an attempt to stem the losses, hoteliers also discounted average daily room rates heavily across the islands. The statewide average daily room rate (ADR) fell for the fifth straight month to $178.50 per night, a decline of 3.9 percent as compared to the prior year

RevPAR (revenue per available room), the most telling indicator of hotel health, plunged across all islands as falling occupancy and ADR took its toll. The neighbor islands were particularly hard hit with Maui, the Big Island and Kauai each reporting monthly RevPAR decreases greater than 20 percent. RevPAR on Oahu fared the best; however, the year-ago drop was still a significant 9.2 percent.

This softer hotel performance is reflective of the 15.8 percent drop in visitor arrivals as reported by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and of the continuing economic woes in North America and other parts of the world, said Joe Toy, president of Hospitality Advisors.

               

     

 

CORRECTION         This article's original headline misstated the state hotel occupancy rate. The rate dropped to 63 percent in November; it did not drop 63 percent.