Hawaii Braces For Tourism Slowdown

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Feb 7th 2009 at 10:01AM

President Obama vacationed in Hawaii in December but not a lot of other people did. The Honolulu Star Bulletin reports that Hawaii's hotels and resorts experienced their lowest occupancy in December since the aftermath of 9/11. The hotel occupancy ratewas 60.9 percent in December, down from 70.4 percent the year before. Revenue per room was also down and the average daily room rates were off by almost five percent. The occupancy rate for the year was 70.4 percent which was down 4.6 percent overall.

It's not predicted to get better any time soon. Joe Toy, president and chief executive officer of Hospitality Advisors LLC, who spoke yesterday at the annual Travel & Tourism Research Association/Pacific Asia Tourism Association tourism forecast seminar said that he expects that the recovery phase won't begin until summer 2010. It is expected that some businesses will close during the slowdown and much of the recent growth in the past few years will be lost.

Tags: hawaii, tourism, vacation