Princeville Resort to close for 7 mos. for renovation

From the Kauai Garden Island News: "The Princeville Resort will close for seven months starting Sept. 19 during renovations to re-brand the hotel as The St. Regis Resort, part of parent company Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ luxury series.

The temporary closure will furlough some 366 employees. The hotel is scheduled to reopen April 19, 2009.

“Recent economic conditions have impacted our business levels, prompting a decision to close rather than remain open” General Manager Kelly Hoen said in a statement. “This approach will not only complete the renovation faster, but also get our associates back to work sooner.”

I think the line in bold is a particularly revealing comment on the state of the travel industry in Hawaii and by extension, the purchase of timeshares in Hawaii.

Looking on the brighter side, I hope this means more travel discounts for those of us who go to Hawaii every year!

Also a note of interest at the bottom of the article - "The Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas opens in April."

I hope that some of the 300+ employees who are losing their jobs will be employed at the WPORV.

Full story here

Interesting. Currently, HI is the only state in the nation that hasn't seen decline in real estate prices so far. With the economy on the mainland going into recession, tourism, and TS purchases, are bound to be affected. However, with Hawaii real estate still in demand (real estate prices are projected to increase by 5-7% in HI), we may not see much price depreciation in HI. My guess is that there will be fewer timeshares built because of slower sales and higher cost. Less supply should provide some cusion agaist price drop even as demand is reduced.

In terms of cost of a Hawaiian vacation, I'm not sure it will become any cheaper. IMO, it will likely be more expensive as the transportatin cost continue to skyrocket and the Fed continue to cut interest rate (which will increase the risk of inflation and further devalue the US dollar relative to the Asian currencies). We will probably see more Asian tourists in Hawaii in '08 and beyond.

This decision is consistent with Starwood's closing the Royal Hawaiian hotel in Waikiki for 6 months this year in order to renovate it. The news reports said they were trying to relocate workers to other properties, but I doubt that they could do that for everyone.

tonyh said:

In terms of cost of a Hawaiian vacation, I'm not sure it will become any cheaper. IMO, it will likely be more expensive as the transportatin cost continue to skyrocket

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We use points for airfare, so I'm not worried about that, but I think we will see more activity and dining discounts and coupons - at least I hope so! With the price of airfare going up, we may see some resale bargains, too.