Hawaii Has the Highest-Earning Hotels of All 50 States

Hawaii has the highest earning hotel businesses in the United States, according to a new study: the state has 277 hotels with each raking in nearly $25 million in revenue per year.

That’s according to a new study from HotelTechReport, which ranked the District of Columbia as second place after Hawaii for annual revenue. despite having the fewest hotel businesses nationally, each DC hotel ranks in $21,617,731 per year on average.

New York follows behind at number three, but “due to the high number of hotel businesses in the state (2,314) each individual business makes more than three times less revenue ($6,259,171)  than those in Hawaii or DC,” the HotelTechReport analysis notes. Florida and Massachusetts follow at number six and seven, followed by California, where hotels make just over $5 million in revenue per year and employ the most hotel staff of all US states.

Illinois, Nevada, Arizona, Maryland, and Colorado round out the rest of the top 10. On the flip side, hotels in Mississippi and Arkansas make the least annual revenue per hotel per year, at just more than $1 million per business.

“As the US hotel market continues to skyrocket, it’s interesting to see the industry’s footprint in each state, and the differences across the country, from revenue through to number of employees,” a HotelTechReport spokesperson said in a statement. “Hawaii is a very popular destination with some of the world’s most luxurious resorts, so it’s fascinating to see the financial impact of the hotels in the state, which is even more impressive when compared to other major tourist destinations like New York and Florida.”

The hotel market is currently valued at $93 billion, and Hawaii in particularly has enjoyed a boom in post-pandemic travelers as of late. In July, the Hawaiian island of Oahu posted d an 18.4% increase in RevPAR from the previous month, “meaning that despite higher average daily room rates and inevitability of possibly having to contend with air travel disruptions in order to arrive to this tropical destination, travelers were not dissuaded,” Moody’s economist Ermengarde Jabir said.

Occupancy rates across the hotel sector have surpassed pre-COVID levels as well, according to recent Moody’s data, and average daily rates have also shown strength.

“It’s (very much) about the demand side,” the firm wrote in a recent analysis. “If there are more hotel rooms available now (on average) relative to the end of 2019, and DRs and occupancies have exceeded pre-COVID levels, the story about demand for lodging being exceptionally strong is credible. Call it revenge travel, with people essentially saying that Covid isn’t the boss of them.”

Year-to-date revenue per available room (RevPAR) is also up 19% over 2019 for resorts in particular, according to research from Green Street.