Hotel occupancy on the Big Island was over 53% in April, a sign that the state’s tourism industry is slowly returning to normal a year after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
The Kohala Coast saw an even higher occupancy rate, with 64.4% of rooms occupied for the fourth month of the year, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s hotel performance report released earlier this week. Although 53.7% of the island’s hotel rooms were occupied last month – an increase of 42.5% from 2020 – occupancy is still down 28% from the prepandemic in 2019.
Nationwide, occupancy was 50.8% in April, compared to 2020, when only 8.8% of the state’s hotel rooms were occupied at the time the coronavirus hit. For the entire state, Oahu was 47%, Maui county was 62.1%, and Kauai was 36.9%. This made the Big Island the highest rate in the state of Aloha.
Although the occupancy rate has dropped significantly from last year, the rate on the Big Island has slowly increased since October 2020, when the state reopened to tourism. During the first month of the Safe Travels program, the Big Island reported an occupancy rate of 19.8%, which rose to 20.4% in November and 26.8% in December. It was 26.9% through January and 49.6% through March.
Along with the increase in occupancy, hotels across the state saw higher average daily rates and higher earnings per available room. In April, the average daily rate on the Big Island was $ 326.23, an increase of 128.6% from 2020 and $ 272.33 in 2019. Revenue per available room increased 1,280.3% from 2020 to 152, 52 USD.
Resorts along the Kohala Coast averaged $ 470.92 per day, up from $ 373.55 in 2019. Revenue per available room was $ 303.25 in April, down from $ 285.72 in 2019. During the shutdown No data was stored for the Kohala Coast during the pandemic.
April vacation rental dates are yet to be released by the Hawaii Tourism Authority. However, the March accommodation choice outperformed the Big Island hotels, posting an occupancy rate of 70.3%, an increase of around 4.5 percentage points over the previous year. Nationwide, 62.3% of the 587,269 available units were occupied in April.
