The bill wants to eliminate "short term" rentals at a place that is a tourist destination? If it's designed to make the locals a better life, by all means, that's cool. So how you going to offset tourist money? That would be my next question.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Build more resorts of course.

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My Strava | My Instagram | Summerville, SC | 35-39 AG | 4:41 (70.3), 10:05 (140.6) | 3x70.3, 1x140.6 | Cat 2 Cyclist

If your culling the ways you can draw tourist, then you by default are losing revenue streams to pay for those big resorts.....which means your going to only rely on the locals to sorta help pay for it. So are you back to square one?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

This is mainly a push to gain more of the already available housing that is currently being used as short-term rentals and convert it into long-term rentals that would benefit the victims of the Lahaina fire. But they do seem to be heavily lobbied for by the hotel and resort industry as well. These bills will allow each county to individually create their own strictions on short-term rentals. IMO this is a win for the locals. If done correctly (and that is a MAJOR if. Hawaii politics are absolutely terrible.) more long-term rentals should become available or more homes are put up for sale. I do not see this happening any time soon even if these bills become law. There will be plenty of bureaucracy to navigate through.

I don't really see how this is really any different than what is currently enforced on Oahu. Short-term vacation rentals (less than 90 days) are currently only allowed in the Waikiki, Turtle Bay, and Ko Olina areas. Basically, if it isn't in a resort area the short-term rental is illegal. So, I guess it will be up to Hawai`i County to decide what they want to do if these bills are passed.

It certainly feels like Hawaiian locals are becoming increasingly unwelcoming not only towards the Ironman athlete but to tourists in general. Which is fine with me, it's their home and I don't want to go where I'm not welcome. Their are plenty of options in the South Pacific, South East Asia, and the Caribbean for me to spend my disposable income.

In fairness it could be said they are willing to welcome some percentage of tourists relative to their population size, but not the levels they currently do and are on a path to keep importing if they don't limit the market.

My wife were in Maui back in January. Stayed at a Marriott the first week and a VRBO the second week. While at the Marriott, we ordered room service and was thanking the guy who delivered our food. His reply was "no, thank you. I'm very thankful to have tourist back on the island because I was out of work for 4 weeks when the fires ravaged Lahaina". At the time of the Lahaina fires, there was a strong vocal group telling the continental US....."stay away, we don't want you". It apparently had the desired effect because the number of tourist dropped fairly significantly. Soon, some of the businesses on Maui were being hurt by the sudden loss of income that tourist provide and started saying "please come back". It's always a war of we hate the tourist but we want the money they provide.

Similar rumblings from the Canary Islands..
'Tourists go home' graffiti spreads in Canary Islands with slogans aimed at British holidaymakers accused of causing 'misery' to locals (msn.com)

As the case goes all over the world...tourists are a pain in my community. I really don't want them messing with my pristine lifestyle but dammit I need cash for my economy and I have scenery, weather and no other useful industry so we have to put up with these drunken idiots spoiling our towns , villages , Beaches and mountains and clogging our roads.

And so it goes on over and over and over whether ski town, beach town, trekking town, gambling town, amusement park town. Bloody stupid tourists why don't you just ship us your money and keep your asses at home !!!!

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Bloody tourists have ruined Phuket!!

On the other hand you have place where normal people don't live and then you put up a dam or a massive set of thermal plants for electricity and water and you get Vegas or Dubai which are built to suck money out of idiot tourists anyway....so there it is more like 'come on down, blow your life savings , we love ya for it'

Yes, it could.

Only smart and charitable people would articulate it so well though.

The original point of the post is the writing is on the wall for years now. The discontent underlying Kona's problems 2 years ago was a matter of time. I suppose it could be said that Messick was crazy to try to pull off two days of racing in the first place in such a climate where the literal natives feel under attack from outsiders. Or he saw it as a way to get from point A to point B by forcing the issue. And if it worked and Kona was happy with it, that's great; if not, then IM gets to shop around its most famous race to the highest bidder.

Hawaii in general has become extremely expensive. Up until 2019 we used to go twice a year, Maui in April/May and kona in October. Recent trips for two-three weeks that have been dramatically cheaper are NZ, Lanzarote and just got back from La Réunion for three weeks.

I get the locals attitude at least in Maui where tragedy and ABNB have led to housing pressure….but damn, post Covid room rates are at least 250% if you are lucky.

Maurice

I just got back from Maui.

Limiting these rentals would go a long way to making it affordable for people to live in Hawaii.

However it would also mean I would never travel to Hawaii and spend money, the rental agency that runs the property I rent would close and everyone would be out of a job, the cleaning staff would lose their jobs as well, maintenance staff, car rental staff, restaurants... the list goes on.

Maybe they can sustain things with low tourism and and increase in agricultural and WFH jobs, I duno... seems like the solution might be worse than the problem.

X2, we were on Maui in October and the locals were very happy to see us back. They were struggling financially post the Lahaina fire.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

Molokaʻi seems to have struck a nice balance. Very limited development - zero corporate resorts. No "island takeovers" - pretty sure the odds of getting any kind of very large race permit is something close to zero. They host a Moloka'i to Oahu paddleboard race, but that's more aligned to Hawai'i culture than triathlon, and doesn't involve a week-long takeover.


But certainly a good amount of tourism still.


Granted it's a comparatively small island.

The problem is even if they could get approved, if they went to a smaller island is they won't have enough volunteers or other necessary support (hospital, etc).

These anti-tourist attitudes really area pretty tough. Switching to agriculture or some other low cost export is probably the dumbest thing they could do. Workers want to trade three $150/each cleaning fees per day ($450/day) where they get to clean 3 apartments and then go spend time with family for making $150/day of 8 hours of hard labor picking pineapple or butchering lifestock, etc?

What they really need is a state incentive for developers to build higher density home developments for residents to live in with long term payment plans subsidized by tourism taxes.

Unfortunately, they've probably spent all that tourism tax money on other projects and wages for state employees rather than using it to benefit all the residents.

Still, the end result is the same, costs for Hawaii will keep going up.

Good, as long it's just costs to tourists. They should fleece us for all their worth. I'd jack up my AirBnB rate until I stopped getting any offers at all.

Public service announcement:

1) State parks:
Okay- I am cheap guy.
But camping, in a beautiful park, next to the beach, is much, much nicer- than staying in a high-rise condo.
(Caution not all Hawaii state parks are 'beautiful')

2) Kailua Kona, Pauko, Hapuna, Kawaihae suck!!
And they are expensive!!
Okay- I am from Tucson. I realize that other people might find novelty in a urban desert resort place.
But most of Hawaii is a tropical paradise.
And much cheaper than a high-rise condo in an urban desert.

High profits attract more airbnb development. If you made 4x the mortgage payment on your airbnb do you think not or less people will try to do the same.

If Hawaii wants less tourists and to reduce the profitability of airbnbs it needs to increase supply of housing and reduce supply of tourists. No idea of the legality, but I wonder about restrictions on flights. If half as many people can fly to Hawaii, airbnbs lower their prices to ensure they win the customer. Lower prices make airbnb owners decide to become a long term rental or sell instead. 🤔

When we were on Maui, in January, there were locals living in a large tent village right on the beach in front of Whaler's Village (nice shopping/hotel area just past Lahaina area).

The Hawaiian governor made an announcement basically saying he was going to force VRBO owners to provide housing to displaced locals, at "fair market value and tax incentives", if enough of them did not offer up their places for use. As far as I know, it was a hollow threat and nothing ever came of it.

I've read that 20-30% of STRs are owned by corporate entities, instead of individuals renting out there homes/condos. If that is the case, the only way Hawaii (and any other tourist community) to could stop the VRBO surge is to outlaw STRs. In Steamboat Springs, CO, they were having a big fight about this because many of the locals can no longer afford to live there. The pandemic related housing demand made all of this even worse. Steamboat now has designated rental zones. So, it really didn't do anything to stop current STRs but it will prevent further expansion of STRs, outside those zones. This at least keeps their STR growth under better control.......but still not much help for locals

If you include small groups of investors, I would flip that around to say 20-30% individuals and 70-80% investment. They are building condo/townhouse complexes here that are marketed as STRs. Thankfully my neighborhood has a moratorium on STR permits, though we have a few grandfathered in.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Technically, I suppose it's right there in the 5th amendment he can do that. He just needs to pay just compensation to the owners for it. The problem is, it would be cheaper to rebuild the communities into higher density homes/condos than buy up high end rental units and kill your tourism income.

Insert all the conspiracy theories about what's going to happen with that land. If those residents don't move back in and it becomes more tourist areas the locals need to seriously think about tar and feathers.