A close look inside the types of available visitor accommodation units on Kaua’i reveals a continuing shift which may end up changing even what we call the visitor industry here. For most of the island’s tourism life, “visitor industry” and
A close look inside the types of available visitor accommodation units on Kaua’i reveals a continuing shift which may end up changing even what we call the visitor industry here.
For most of the island’s tourism life, “visitor industry” and “hotel industry” have been essentially synonymous, and since the beginning of the decline of sugar the island’s main economic driver.
But “hotel industry” may already be a misnomer if what is being discussed is the makeup of Kaua’i rental units available to visitors.
There were 7,202 total visitor accommodation units on the island last year, according to figures from the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. That represents the fifth-highest total in the island’s history, and the largest number since 1992, when 7,778 units were available.
Of course, the 1992 figure counts units available before Hurricane ‘Iniki hit in September of that year. In 1993, that figure fell to 4,631, moved to nearly 6,000 in 1994, and saw more gradual ups and downs from 1996 (total units: 6,760) through last year.
The 2000 total was 7,159, making the 2001 mark an increase of just 0.6 percent compared to 2000.
But only 37.3 percent of those, or 2,689, were hotel units in 2001. The number of units classified as condominium hotel, 2,879, was 40 percent of the island’s total last year, and the “other” category, which on this island includes some sizable timeshare properties including the Kauai Marriott Resort & Beach Club’s timeshare units and Pahio properties from Nukoli’i to Princeville, numbered 1,148 available units.
The island’s 1,599 timeshare units last year represented 37.2 percent of the state’s total timeshare inventory, with over 200 more timeshare units under construction at Marriott’s Waiohai Beach Club, and Pahio building new timeshare resorts or converting existing resort condominiums to timeshare as quickly as that company can.
Where the Kaua’i figures are concerned, many of the timeshare units are categorized in either the condominium hotel or other categories.
The prospects for new hotel rooms on the island, at least for now, begin and end at Kapalawai and Waimea Plantation Cottages on the Westside, where plans call for around 250 and 100 new rooms, respectively, at least in first phases.
The changing nature especially of certain North Shore neighborhoods where vacation rentals now exist where owner-occupants or long-term residential renters used to dwell, is not lost in the state visitor industry figures for Kaua’i.
Behind condominium hotel, hotel and other units on Kaua’i comes the individual vacation unit category, with 337 units, followed by bed-and-breakfast units, at 105.
Of all the visitor accommodations on the island last year, 77 percent were in the standard or deluxe categories in terms of per-night rental charges. Of the total inventory, some 45.7 percent, or 3,257 units, were in the standard range ($101 to $250 a night).
The island’s total of 7,202 visitor accommodation units last year represented 10 percent of the state’s total, while the 257 properties (average size: 28 units) accounted for 28.1 percent of the state’s total.
Business Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
