Maui’s lodging industry is providing more than 90% of the housing so far for residents displaced by the Maui wildfires.
Gov. Josh Green said at a news conference Monday that 1,962 housing units are now available to get people out of shelters, including 402 hotel rooms, and starting today 1,400 Airbnb vacation rental units. Green said 160 private citizens have stepped up with the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. to provide their houses to be shared.
Jerry Gibson, president of the Hawaii Hotel Alliance, said about 50 shelter guests were transferred to hotel rooms in West Maui on Sunday.
“By (Monday) evening we will be up to about 300, and we’ll continue (today),” he said.
Gibson said West Maui hotels also are hosting more than 700 hotel team members and their families who were displaced.
“No one is being charged on the west side,” he said.
He said FEMA has contracted about 750 rooms to house a range of emergency assistance workers.
While West Maui hotels have more than 3,500 hotel rooms collectively, Gibson said hotels can’t operate at 100% occupancy due to worker shortages.
While West Maui is closed to tourism, Green and Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen reiterated at Monday’s news conference that other unaffected parts of Maui are open. Bissen said the county has not asked visitors to leave places such as Wailea, Makena and Kihei.
Keith Vieira, principal of KV &Associates, Hospitality Consulting, said that message was a positive development for Maui’s visitor industry, which has to continue to drive Maui’s tourism-
dependent economy. Still, he said, Maui hotels already are experiencing significant cancellations through year’s end.
“It’s on the level of the earlier pandemic cancellations,” Vieira said.
More economic losses are likely coming. AccuWeather, a source of global weather forecasts and warnings headquartered in State College, Pa., about doubled its estimate Monday of the statewide economic impact of the wildfires on Maui and Hawaii island to at least $14 billion to $16 billion.
Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist, said in a statement, “AccuWeather experts have continually monitored reports from Hawaii from a variety of sources, and unfortunately, upon surveying the latest damage reports from Hawaii, especially in Maui, to homes, businesses, boats, the extensive loss of life, evacuations, widespread power outages and other factors, we increased our estimate.”
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