As Vacation Rentals Soar, Hotel Rooms Remain Flat

Hawaii’s inventory of visitor accommodations had a net gain of 6,377 units from 2013 to 2017, but new hotel rooms made up a relatively small part of the growth. Vacation rentals, such as Airbnbs, saw a growth of 82 percent, compared to a 2 percent increase in hotel rooms.

The HTA cautions that its vacation rental unit count is a conservative estimate; individually advertised units are difficult to count, and as a result HTA says it “has likely undercounted the actual number of vacation rental units.”