On Friday the Hawaii Tourism Authority told visitors there was no reason to cancel upcoming trips. The same day, the Royal Hawaiian, Moana Surfrider, and six other iconic Waikiki hotels opened their doors to flood evacuees at the governor’s request.
The governor called the hotels himself.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green said he personally reached out to major Waikiki properties to secure rooms for residents who could not safely return home or chose not to stay in emergency shelters. These were not fringe or overflow type accommodations. They were some of the most iconic hotels in Hawaii, the same ones that appear on visitors’ wish lists.
The properties include the Royal Hawaiian, Moana Surfrider, Sheraton Waikiki Beach Resort, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort, Outrigger Waikiki Beachcomber, Outrigger Waikiki Paradise, and the Waikiki Beach Marriott.
Rooms are being offered at rates starting at $191, with resort fees waived. The governor described the pricing as a deeply discounted Kama’aina (resident) rate, estimating it at roughly 60% to 70% below the normal cost. His intent was to give displaced residents an option that felt safer and more stable than large-scale shelter environments, and in a state where housing inventory was already tight before the storm, the list of properties willing to participate filled up fast.
The HTA said there was no reason to cancel or postpone.
While those calls were being made to hotels, the Hawaii Tourism Authority continued to urge visitors not to cancel their trips. The official guidance emphasized that airports remain operational, hotels are open, and tourism infrastructure is functioning.
Hawaii has been through this before and hopes to rethink the calculation this time. A sudden collapse in visitor arrivals ripples quickly through our fragile economy, where tourism touches nearly everything, and state officials have become acutely aware that messaging continuity is a critical component of disaster response.
The challenge this time is how visible the contrast appeared. On one hand, the state is asking travelers to proceed as planned. On the other, it is actively placing displaced residents into the same hotels those travelers have booked.
For visitors, that raises questions beyond whether flights are operating or hotels are open. What visitors find when they arrive is a different question than whether their flight lands on time, and that was not addressed by either the governor or HTA.
These are the hotels on many Waikiki vacation wish lists.
The Royal Hawaiian and Moana Surfrider anchor the historic end of Waikiki and are among the most recognizable of all properties in Hawaii. The Sheraton Waikiki and Waikiki Beach Marriott alone account for nearly 3,000 rooms, making them two of the largest hotels on the beach.
What this means if you have a Hawaii booking coming right up.
Having a reservation at one of these properties does not mean your trip is disrupted in any way. Hotels remain open and operating, but your stay may not look exactly as you expected when you booked it.
The Kona Storm that made this necessary is not over yet.
This situation was triggered by two back-to-back Kona lows within a single week, a rare pattern that brought prolonged and intense rainfall across multiple islands.
The first system hit Maui hardest, and the second has also focused on Oahu’s North Shore, where evacuation orders remain in effect, and flooding has been described as catastrophic in some areas.
Governor Green has said the event could result in $1 billion in damage statewide, and on Oahu alone, there have already been 233 rescues due to flooding. Green called it the largest flood Hawaii has seen in 20 years, and the full picture of the damage is still coming into focus. The longer residents remain displaced, the longer those rooms stay committed to emergency use.
Weather is expected to improve quickly starting Monday, with conditions clearing from Kauai down the island chain and a return to typical trade wind weather with largely sunny skies across the state through the coming week.
Do you have a trip to Hawaii booked right now, and has this storm changed how you’re thinking about it?
Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu.
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I think it is unethical to release a statement to visitors to say they shouldn’t change their plans while the infrastructure on Maui has crumbled, the main route to West Maui is “on and off open and shut”, South Kihei Rd will take months to rebuild, and the brown water along the coast is unsafe for swimming due to bio hazards from the runoff, reservoir ruptures and backwash spills from the filtration plant!
Wonder how many non Hawaiian residents or tourists checked out early and demanded a refund for unused nights and decided to leave Hawaii because locals obtained a 70-90% discount. Full price to a visitor might really feel like an insult in that the ordeal may not seem fair. IMO I think the hotels did a big favor to these residents and were not under any obligation. Yet alone I am really shocked at how many people are resentful that this gesture wasn’t 100% free. This just shows IMO how entitled these Hawaiian residents think. Make use of those capsules or YMCA or shelters. Why does it have to be the most expensive hotel on the island?
“Wonder how many non Hawaiian residents or tourists checked out early and demanded a refund for unused nights and decided to leave Hawaii because locals obtained a 70-90% discount”? Wow! That question borders discrimination and you feel that they are the ones discriminating? Why would tourists leave when locals arrive? I loved the local vibe when hotels were not that expensive and I am grateful for the Kamaaina rates. As this article mentioned, the governor personally contacted the resorts to find out how they can assist. I doubt they were full, so why not use the rooms at discounted rates? Flash news: the person sitting next to you in a plane probably didn’t pay the same price!
We were scheduled to stay on North Shore in Waialua near the sugar mill. We couldn’t get ahold of our friend to find out if it was habitable or was flooded…it is literally 30 steps to the ocean. We decided to postpone our vacation as we know there is so much damage to roads etc. it broke our heart to cancel but felt it best. If anyone knows the area by sugar mill please let me know if it is flooded.
Good news Hawai’i residents your state that taxes the hell out of everything doesn’t have enough funds to cover a few nights for flood victims at local resorts, but hey they got that nasty resort fee dropped for you. What a joke.
Most residents in Hawaii actually don’t pay that much tax . Property taxes are considerably reduced for owners who live in their properties or rent them out long term. If you don’t, your taxes triple which I am not against when I see how many mansions are vacant most of the year here on Maui. If you can afford a multi million dollar home that you don’t even live in nor rent out long term, you can probably afford paying higher taxes. Income taxes are also pretty low for residents. Most don’t make a fortune and non-residents who don’t have income in Hawaii are paying income tax in the state they choose to have as a primary residence.
Josh Green spent $55M per month of our tax dollars for months on end to house undocumented workers in Maui beachfront hotels after the fires, because FEMA was prevented by law from doing so. He later built an entire 450 housing unit subdivision for them, Ka La’i Ola.
In contrast, he’s now pitching otherwise empty rooms for his hotel donors to beleaguered, tax paying Citizens who just lost it all and are too busy cleaning up to skip off to Waikiki anyway.
Not a good look for Green. Out of touch. Didn’t even bother to waive his slice of the pie, the TAT.
$191 a night, then add taxes and resort fees is basically a slap in the face to people who have lost all or almost all of what they hold dear. Show me one local person from the North Shore area who can afford that
$191 was the maximum they mentioned and it specifically said that resort fees would be waived. I don’t know anyone from the North Shore, but I do know locals from other areas who spent week-ends in resorts at those prices.
Nope. It was “… rates Starting At $191 …”, and that’s just the baited hook for higher pricing. And they waived resort fees but not the drinks and dining, parking, beach recliners, TAT, and oh, don’t forget to tip the cabana boy!
Nice that some local residents are taking advantage, but the message to those with significant flooding is “eat cake”.
The Hawaii Tourism Authority should be fired. I remember the old days, when Kauai was expecting a hurricane and hotels were advising tourists to leave and offered refunds without questions asked. Some tourists decided to stay and help residents. Others reminded how kind everyone was and went back to the same hotels the following years. This was then, now it’s all about money. So sad.
One party rule…
I have a different view. Any time I am at a place that has a “natural disaster”, then I see how news depicts the event, I see things totally blown out of proportion to get viewers. If there’s one collapsed building they show it over and over until people think the whole city is trashed. I’ve seen this same thing with storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes. And it’s not innocent because then tourists cancel their plans and the area suffers for no reason. If it were as bad as being depicted, they would tell you to stay away.
I live on Maui and can tell you that I have never seen a storm like we had now. It has been raining hard for 2 weeks straight and there was a lot of damage all over the islands.