Save Kauai brings together current information about Kauai and web-based tools that allow you to take action. If we want to affect the future of Kauai in a pono way we must organize and begin implementing solutions, not just fighting the problems.
Aloha 'Aina, Imua Kakou!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
I have been getting reports from South and West Maui that the hotels there are running at only 60 to 70% occupancy this Summer at a time when they should be running at 80 to 90%, but they have not lowered their room rates. Here on Kauai, we seem to be having a decent Summer with many hotels running at 80 to 90% occupancy, but many here have lowered their room rates down to as much as half. So, I was surprised to see the following.
I was reading The Garden Island News today and came across the following title, "Kaua‘i visitor numbers, spending down" by Blake Jones. The first sentence has the following shocking data, "Total visitor arrivals to Kaua‘i were down 23.5 percent this June compared to last [June] for a total of 95,333, according to preliminary statistics released Tuesday by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism." The article mentions some of the data being down 13.5 and 13.6 percent, so I thought this must have been a typo. Nobody seems to be talking about visitor arrivals here being down 23.5%.
I was wrong. I went to the DBEDT web site and found the above report cited. It is here: http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/main/news_releases/2008/news-release-0820. I recommend reading this report all the way to the charts in the second half of the report. That 23.5% down for June is because of the huge loss in cruise ship arrivals. Hotels are down between 10 to 15% year-over-year for now. But, watch out for the Fall of 2008, because some of the hotels will also be down 20 to 30% year-over-year beginning in the Fall. I don't think people here are aware of this and the effects it will have.
Aloha, Brad