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Maui Hotels Have the Highest Rates But the Lowest Occupancy

slip

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Kauai leads the islands in Occupancy.

 

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So if I understand what I just read, even though the money they're making per room has increased substantially since before the pandemic, a third of rooms still go unoccupied each night. Seems to me they could reduce the prices some, and increase the occupancy rates, bringing in more revenue overall.

Does this include timeshares as well, or just hotels?

Dave
 

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Interesting.
 

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So if I understand what I just read, even though the money they're making per room has increased substantially since before the pandemic, a third of rooms still go unoccupied each night. Seems to me they could reduce the prices some, and increase the occupancy rates, bringing in more revenue overall.

Does this include timeshares as well, or just hotels?

Dave

I was wonder that myself. I also was wondering if it was all of Maui County? Molokai's rates are very low but there aren't many units and Lanai's rates are very high. I suppose they average out.
 

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I was wonder that myself. I also was wondering if it was all of Maui County? Molokai's rates are very low but there aren't many units and Lanai's rates are very high. I suppose they average out.

It said Maui County, with room totals, so likely includes Molokai and Lanai, too. I was also surprised to read Wailea's room rates were approaching $1000 a night. I knew there were some fancy digs there, but those numbers seem over the top. I wonder how many rooms are rented at reduced rates (think Priceline bids) to keep them from staying empty.

Dave
 

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It said Maui County, with room totals, so likely includes Molokai and Lanai, too. I was also surprised to read Wailea's room rates were approaching $1000 a night. I knew there were some fancy digs there, but those numbers seem over the top. I wonder how many rooms are rented at reduced rates (think Priceline bids) to keep them from staying empty.

Dave

Mahalo, I missed that.

I remember Wailea being around $700 so that has gone up just like everything else. I wonder If they are OK with the lower occupancy because of the worker shortage also?
 

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Thank goodness for timeshares and reasonable condo rentals. That way we can still keep going to Maui.

I agree. I remember in 2019, I stayed at the Marriott Courtyard on Maui for $188 a night. The last time I stayed for work in January of 2022, it was $456 a night.
 

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For our March 2023 trip it will be one in the timeshare where we own and one week rental at the property next door for $280/night (with an ocean view). And maybe RCI will still come through with a trade for that second week.
 

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For our March 2023 trip it will be one in the timeshare where we own and one week rental at the property next door for $280/night (with an ocean view). And maybe RCI will still come through with a trade for that second week.

We'll miss you by a month. We are going to meet our daughter there in April. It's her first trip. We are only staying a week and will be at the Maui Schooner.
 

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So if I understand what I just read, even though the money they're making per room has increased substantially since before the pandemic, a third of rooms still go unoccupied each night. Seems to me they could reduce the prices some, and increase the occupancy rates, bringing in more revenue overall.

Does this include timeshares as well, or just hotels?

Dave

In the lengthy discussion we had about Maui raising the parking fees at beaches and in villages the feeling that I was getting is that the people in Maui wanted to reduce the number of tourists. One of the ways you can do that is raise the cost of hotel rentals so that less tourists come. You can more revenue from less tourists. Perhaps they found the magic bullet without having to tax tourist $50 each and give an appearance like you want to punish tourists.

I was never for charging tourists a $50 fee. Chincy.
 

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I was never for charging tourists a $50 fee. Chincy.

Every visitor to Las Vegas pays fees from the minute they land until the minute they depart. But they don't notice it because the fees are cooked into the prices.

That's the way to go. Just like people will click on the lowest airfare or lowest hotel room and then deal with being nickeled and dimed, they won't even think about their Hawaiian vacation where $1000 is cooked into the cost of rental cars, hotel rooms and meals.

They're paying $30 for an order of freakin' tater tots, FFS. They don't have any right to whinge on about fees if they're willing to pay $30 for 50 cents worth of food.
 

Tamaradarann

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Every visitor to Las Vegas pays fees from the minute they land until the minute they depart. But they don't notice it because the fees are cooked into the prices.

That's the way to go. Just like people will click on the lowest airfare or lowest hotel room and then deal with being nickeled and dimed, they won't even think about their Hawaiian vacation where $1000 is cooked into the cost of rental cars, hotel rooms and meals.

They're paying $30 for an order of freakin' tater tots, FFS. They don't have any right to whinge on about fees if they're willing to pay $30 for 50 cents worth of food.

The point is you don't want to appear chincy with a $50 tourist fee, but you do want to charge the tourists for coming and using your infrastucture and putting a load on the environment of these beautiful islands! The $1000 hotel rooms that tourist rent come with almost $200 in taxes/night. I am sure that in a weeks stay every tourist that comes to Hawaii pays an additional $50 in GET taxes on the food, drinks, activites, entertainment. Again why appear to be chincy. If the tourists are not paying enough double the GET on everything but exempt unprepared food which is what local buy much more than tourists.
 

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The point is you don't want to appear chincy with a $50 tourist fee, but you do want to charge the tourists for coming and using your infrastucture and putting a load on the environment of these beautiful islands! The $1000 hotel rooms that tourist rent come with almost $200 in taxes/night. I am sure that in a weeks stay every tourist that comes to Hawaii pays an additional $50 in GET taxes on the food, drinks, activites, entertainment. Again why appear to be chincy. If the tourists are not paying enough double the GET on everything but exempt unprepared food which is what local buy much more than tourists.

On Molokai, Kim is eligible for the Meo Card. That gives us no sales tax at the grocery stores here. You have to be 60 years old to qualify for it but my point is, it saves us about $25 a month. That is with just 2 of us. If they eliminated that tax like Tamaradarann is saying it would be a nice savings for families.
 

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They're paying $30 for an order of freakin' tater tots, FFS. They don't have any right to whinge on about fees if they're willing to pay $30 for 50 cents worth of food.

My read of the menu you're referring to is some kind of fancy tater tots with fresh-caught shrimp. So it's definitely not 50¢ worth of food, even if it's overpriced.
 

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Supply and Demand Theory are in play.
Reduce the high rates to increase the occupancy rate.
KISS Theory. LOL
 

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My read of the menu you're referring to is some kind of fancy tater tots with fresh-caught shrimp. So it's definitely not 50¢ worth of food, even if it's overpriced.

Really, it's about $0.50 worth of food. If you believe the shrimp doesn't come frozen out of a bag, I have a bridge from Big Island to Maui to sell you. But even if it really is local wild caught (it isn't), a few shrimp doesn't cost even $1.00 when purchasing in restaurant quantities.

My point stands. Tourists who are willing to pay $18 for an order of tater tots, with a $12 three-shrimp-on-the-barbie up-sell can afford additional tourist fees.

Maui has made it clear, over and over, they're trying to reduce numbers. Fees are the easiest way to reduce them. (You would think $30 tater tots would do the trick, but that's clearly a big "no.") They should just bake the fees into rental car prices and departure taxes so people don't snivel about it.
 

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My read of the menu you're referring to is some kind of fancy tater tots with fresh-caught shrimp. So it's definitely not 50¢ worth of food, even if it's overpriced.

The price of food has gone up everywhere so having it go up alot in Hawaii where much of it must be imported for thousands of miles without the benefit of trucks and trains is not alarming nor looked at as a negative message. A $50 tourist tax is alarming and gives a negative message. Also, there are many food outlets so if one is too expensive you can go to another or eat different types of food. A $50 tourist tax by the government is just there, it is blatant, and it is Cindy.
 

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Really, it's about $0.50 worth of food. If you believe the shrimp doesn't come frozen out of a bag, I have a bridge from Big Island to Maui to sell you. But even if it really is local wild caught (it isn't), a few shrimp doesn't cost even $1.00 when purchasing in restaurant quantities.

My point stands. Tourists who are willing to pay $18 for an order of tater tots, with a $12 three-shrimp-on-the-barbie up-sell can afford additional tourist fees.

Maui has made it clear, over and over, they're trying to reduce numbers. Fees are the easiest way to reduce them. (You would think $30 tater tots would do the trick, but that's clearly a big "no.") They should just bake the fees into rental car prices and departure taxes so people don't snivel about it.

It has been reported that Maui has the greatest percentage of vacant hotel rooms and they are blaming the higher cost of hotel rooms on Maui. The higher cost of hotel rooms comes with higher taxes. The Governments of Maui and the state of Hawaii are getting more than the $50 tourist tax would collect in higher TAT and GET taxes on rooms for no cost of collecting and implementation. Why event a wheel when you have nice wheels already that you can just make bigger so easily.
 

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The price of food has gone up everywhere

I just purchased a whole cod, two pounds of wild caught scallops, two pounds of U6 shrimp, pacific oysters, and a few large sardines for a little less than $40. And that's me, John Q. Public, buying from the local fish market. "Capt. Hornblowe'rs Surf and Turf Tourist Trap" pays considerably less because they buy considerably more.

Food hasn't gone up that much. The major cost in a restaurant is all the employees needed to take the order, cook the food and then clean up afterwards. They're sick of working in the industry and are leaving for other careers. The people who are paying through the nose for frozen food poured directly from a bag into a deep fryer don't have an ethical leg to stand on when it comes to tourist fees.
 

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Maui has always said they wanted a different class of people on the island, and that doesn't include timeshare owners. The mayor said year that years ago, when they raised the property taxes for timeshares. We pay something like $280 per week owned for our Hono Koa timeshare in property tax, and we pay a ridiculously high land-lease fee.

The high hotel price will get those rich people to the island, but upper-income people have other places to go besides Maui. Hotel owners need to face the truth and that is that rich people have enough money to do some pretty exclusive vacations. They don't have to go to Maui every year. Money=choice.
 

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I just purchased a whole cod, two pounds of wild caught scallops, two pounds of U6 shrimp, pacific oysters, and a few large sardines for a little less than $40. And that's me, John Q. Public, buying from the local fish market. "Capt. Hornblowe'rs Surf and Turf Tourist Trap" pays considerably less because they buy considerably more.

Food hasn't gone up that much. The major cost in a restaurant is all the employees needed to take the order, cook the food and then clean up afterwards. They're sick of working in the industry and are leaving for other careers. The people who are paying through the nose for frozen food poured directly from a bag into a deep fryer don't have an ethical leg to stand on when it comes to tourist fees.

Food hasn't gone up much? :ROFLMAO:

What planet are you living on?:D
 

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Food hasn't gone up much? :ROFLMAO:

What planet are you living on?:D

The vast majority of the food I buy doesn't come in a box and doesn't have a UPC code. (Exceptions for dried pasta, dried beans, and similar.) Almost all of it comes in the form of "fresh vegetables and protein." Prices have been flat for years. And I have a limitless supply of avocados, tomatoes, onions, citrus and tropical fruit.

It wouldn't surprise me if Cap'n Crunch cereal and Hot Pockets have gone up considerably. But since I don't buy any of that, I have no idea what the prices are.


Hotel owners need to face the truth and that is that rich people have enough money to do some pretty exclusive vacations. They don't have to go to Maui every year. Money=choice.

St. Barthelemy seems to do quite well with their model of "one-percenters only."
 
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Tamaradarann

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The vast majority of the food I buy doesn't come in a box and doesn't have a UPC code. (Exceptions for dried pasta, dried beans, and similar.) Almost all of it comes in the form of "fresh vegetables and protein." Prices have been flat for years. And I have a limitless supply of avocados, tomatoes, onions, citrus and tropical fruit.

It wouldn't surprise me if Cap'n Crunch cereal and Hot Pockets have gone up considerably. But since I don't buy any of that, I have no idea what the prices are.

Getting off the subject of food prices and back to the subject of this thread: High Maui Hotel prices and lower Maui occupancy.

I believe we have all heard that Maui wanted to reduce the number of tourists. The higher Maui hotel prices seems to have accomplished that. Another benefit of using the hotel prices as a natural method of reducing the number of tourists is that it can be used as an tourist control mechanism. Want lower number of tourist, raise prices. Number of tourists got too low, lower prices. If you go through the beauacratic process of adding and then collecting a $50 fee, then how do you reverse that if it gets results you don't want?
 

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If you go through the beauacratic process of adding and then collecting a $50 fee, then how do you reverse that if it gets results you don't want?

"You, you, you." I'm not the one doing this.

If I were in charge of reducing tourist numbers, I would hold a lottery for every hotel and timeshare. Those whose numbers are pulled would be knocked down and hauled away -- and replaced with public parks. (Or in the case of some timeshares, converted into housing.) Once we reached "one-third of tourist occupancy vaporized" no more lottery.

Finished. Also, no more resort building permits issued until there are enough houses for the locals.

Of course, with that many hotel rooms removed, taxes on those which remain will necessarily go up by at least one third.

Maui is going to implement fees because that's easy. It's certainly not the best solution. But it's the easiest solution. If they were smart, they would cook the fees into all tourist related activities. But that isn't going to happen, either. So there will be glaring "tourist screwage tax" line items on every receipt. That will annoy a certain market segment into seeking vacation opportunities elsewhere. But it won't do a thing about the average Maui visitor, who isn't feeling any effects from inflation.
 
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