Airing some Hawaii travel industry dirty laundry. How Greedflation is impacting your Hawaii vacation.
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112 thoughts on “Greedflation Smacks Hawaii Worst Among Destinations”
Airing some Hawaii travel industry dirty laundry. How Greedflation is impacting your Hawaii vacation.
Wow, what a great article! But..
But not a single note in the article or in Any of the comments that talk about the collusion of state officials (talking about you, City Council of Honolulu) with the hotel/hospitality folks to intentionally push for “higher value visitors”, by amping up the fury of locals to eliminate “alternate tourist accommodations” (read STRs).
How weird is that?
Well..now the chickens are coming home to roost. Is it so hard to understand that we don’t have any other source of income here in Hawaii and that the health of our beautiful paradise depends on “reasonably managed tourism”?
I live here, and I see the poor roads, and the struggling local folks, trying to make a living, but I’ve run out of sympathy.
100% in agreement, Ben. County and State legislators and regulators in collusion with the mega-corporations (none of which are locally owned and operated) is the simplest explanation for the rampant overdevelopment that ignores sustainability and common sense and only serves the needs (or wants) of the high income transients (aka wealthy tourists) rather than the local population. Follow The Money.
Like I’ve said on other posts in the past. Big Tourism pretty much owns the politicians in Hawaii. As you said, follow the money. It goes from the tourists to Big Tourism, then out of the state except for the money they use to pay the lobbyists and donate to political campaigns to ensure that the politicians are looking out for Their best interests, not the ordinary people of Hawaii’s.
Aloha! So if this “Greedflation” continues going the direction the State of Hawai’i, or it’s Travel bureau, with will they tear down the hotels in Waikiki to suit the demand figures becauseof the lack of visitors? Just wondering. Would make more room for parks. Aloha!
No one if “forcing” people to pay the high prices. It’s like art. It’s worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
Option 2- Travel somewhere else where the dollar is 2-1
Asia, Fiji,Mexico etc.
Only one problem with your theory. Only the very very rich will be the only ones to visit and buy vacation homes. Which drives up property taxes and goods and services that locals will have to pay. Soon there will be no locals or they will just be homeless. Who ever is reading my comment and rolling their eyes ……. I’ll just sit back ( from the mainland and watch this happen) from afar …..
My best friend and I plan a trip to Maui every 5 years when we have birthdays ending in 0 or 5. We’ve been doing this for the past 20 years so this will be our 5th trip. We’ve always stayed at the same resort in Kaanapali which is normally around $300/night. I almost fell out of my chair when I priced the resort this year as it is now $900/night. So we will not be going to Maui this year but instead visiting the Big Island where we found a beautiful resort for $300/night. I’ve stayed at said resort before and I love it and I know she will love it too. She has never been to the Big Island so it will be fun for us to celebrate our 60th birthdays on a different island this year. Bye bye Maui!
i rent via a large local Hawaii real estate company that reps individual condos owners, for the past five years they have found me great places to stay, with what i think are reasonable prices, $175-250 a night depending on the time of the year mostly. i book directly through them, not vrbo or the like. but i suppose that is just my family, the hotel thing just ain’t us.
🥳 Happy 60th birthdays to you and your friend! What a great and memorable way to celebrate your special day! 🍹🍹 Have fun!! 🎉
Last fall I booked a hotel room on oahu for a vacation in April which I could cancel up to 21 days before arrival date. I’ve made a point of checking the hotel rate frequently and each time the price went down, I updated to the lower price. Now I have a price comperable to the price I’ve paid previously for this room. It has been a real pain to do, but now the trip is affordable. Also Delta has canceled all but 2 flights a day from our closest small town airport and we’d be stuck with a 5 hour wait to connect to our flight to oahu. Found out that it is cheaper to book a limo then fly to the large airport where we get the flight to oahu.
Thank you the information on Greedflation. I was hoping to travel to Oahu and Hilo for my reunion and to visit family in June. Decided to cancel the trip yesterday and I’m pretty heartbroken. Hotels weren’t the reason as I would be staying with family. It was high airfares and ridiculously high cost of car rentals.
Oh well, maybe in another five years?
We’ve been visiting your beautiful islands for over 20+ years with the exception of Covid years . Last year we visited both Oahu & Kauai and felt the huge increase of hotel rates, fees, rental car, etc so this year we went on a Caribbean cruise to 7 different islands plus an extra 2nights in Puerto Rico and it was half of last year’s trip to HI. The Caribbean island locals were thrilled to have us and more than appreciated our visit. Coming to your beautiful state is a very long trip from us from the South but when we considered the time and cost we chose to spend our dollars somewhere else this year and felt welcomed for coming.
I think it’s time to call it for what it really is, plain, old-fashioned, 19th century, capitalist gouging. Last year when we were finally able to go to Maui after Covid, there were steep price increases almost triple what i had paid at the same place the year before COVID – I rationalized this as making up for lost time with what had been lost during Covid. About mid-vacation, when I Had to pay to park the car at beaches I had never done so before, that’s when i realized this Covid rationale was just a cover story for plain old fashioned out-of-control gouging. Soon the Hawaii Tourist Industry is going to price themselves out of the vacation market.
There is a sizeable percentage of the local population that would very much like that to happen. There is also a much larger group of working class people who need those tourist jobs. If the industry collapses a large number of people living near the poverty line will be forced to leave their home for the mainland. Again something a sizable percentage of the population would like to see. Truly sad
I am not sure what you are talking about. I stayed at the Outrigger Beach Hotel in Waikiki for less than $250/night with my boy-friend (Kamaaina rate) mid February, so if anyone pays $1K/night, they haven’t checked around for deals. Prior years, we stayed at another Outrigger Hotel, Ala Moana Hotel and Sheraton Princess Kaluani for similar rates. In addition, we had brunch right at the beach (they call it breakfast buffet) for about $25pp, then relaxed at the pool and swam in the ocean right in front of us. February is supposed to be “high season” which would be comparable to summers on the East Coast where you would probably pay more than that!
In San Diego we most definitely get local’s rates. Perhaps you should check out your home town.