Briefs
Four Alternative Models for Regulating an Investor Owned Utility of the Future
How do you coerce a monopoly to act as if it were operating in a ruthlessly competitive industry? This is the billion-dollar question of Public Utilities Commissions (PUCs). It’s a tricky thing to do with a mixed history of success. And it’s getting trickier, especially here in Hawaiʻi, where renewable energy and so-called “distributed resources” […]
Read MoreIs Leasehold Housing Built on Government Land a Solution to Unaffordable Housing in Honolulu?
Housing is expensive on Oahu. For most middle-class Honolulu households, even buying a median-priced condominium ($415,000 in February 2019) is financially out of reach. Some state lawmakers propose to remedy the situation by developing high-density leasehold condominiums on state-owned and city-owned land near rail transit stations on the Honolulu rapid transit system now under construction […]
Read MoreCharting a New Course For Hawai‘i Tourism
Despite a string of record visitor arrivals now totaling almost ten million annually, Hawai‘i tourism shows signs of trouble. Inflation-adjusted spending per visitor has trended downward. Diminishing economic contribution, eroding resident sentiment, and increasing congestion and stress on sites and attractions provide evidence that the current governance model is inadequate for effectively managing the increasingly […]
Read MoreRethinking Hawaii Tourism: Time to Shift from Marketing to Managing Tourism?
We know from Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) resident surveys that Hawaii residents perceive tourism is our economic lifeline, but it is also a cause of significant number of problems in our lives. Even though most respondents still think tourism brings more benefits than costs to our state, the percent of those who think otherwise has […]
Read MoreMaking Sense of Mandatory Resort Fees
More than 1,000 hotels in the U.S. require guests to pay a mandatory resort fee, stated as a fixed dollar amount per room per night of occupancy, in addition to the base room rate. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), approximately 7% of U.S. hotels charge resort fees. Resort fees cover such […]
Read MoreTime to End the Preferential Taxation of Timeshare Occupancy?
Timeshares comprise a significant percentage of visitor accommodations in Hawaii. There are currently over 11,000 timeshare units in the state, and unlike traditional hotel accommodations, their number keeps growing. Timeshare visitors represented almost 10% of all visitor arrivals in Hawaii during the third quarter of 2017. In Hawaii timeshare owners are required to pay an […]
Read MoreSustainable Tourism Development and Overtourism
Everyone agrees that tourism should be developed in a sustainable way. Yet, nearly 25 years after the term “sustainable tourism” became fashionable, sustainable tourism development remains elusive. Residents in many popular destinations around the world complain about being overwhelmed by too many tourists, or “overtourism”. The United Nations World Tourism Organization blames the problem on […]
Read MoreIs Hawaii’s Hotel Room Tax Law Obsolete?
With tax collections falling behind expectations, State lawmakers are pressuring the tax department to increase effort to collect uncollected taxes from internet sales.* In 2015 the State Attorney General’s Office scored a “major” victory when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that online travel companies (OTCs) are required to pay Hawaii’s general excise tax (GET) on […]
Read MoreThe Exorbitant Cost of Collecting Honolulu’s Rail Surcharge Tax
Act 247, SLH 2005, granted counties the authority to impose a county surcharge of no more than 0.5% on gross income that is subject to the State’s GET [General Excise Tax] at the rate of 4.0% to fund county public transportation systems… The City and County of Honolulu was the only county to adopt the […]
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