Aloha fellow Big Island Short Term Vacation Rental Hosts
In recent days it has been pretty clear that Hawai'i Island and Mayor Kim plan to keep licensed, legal short term vacation rental businesses closed, even when the island reopens to tourism.
I am on island (Captain Cook) and would love to get together with other local hosts to discuss whether it makes sense for us to collectively challenge this discriminatory treatment that has no basis in law, public health or kama'aina safety. We do not deserve 'special' treatment. However, those of us who are operating our businesses legally - and who jumped through all the hoops Bill 108 required -- do deserve to be treated fairly. We pay property taxes, TAT and GET here. We employ local businesses and people to keep things running. And, as a single mom raising a child on my own, I know I count on my business income to feed my family and pay the bills.
When people start traveling to Hawai'i again, where do you think they will feel safest staying? In a hotel -- with shared lounge chairs, a shared swimming pool, shared railings, shared restaurants, and hotel employees and other tourists all around? Or in a private home with no common areas, shared with no one other than their own family? I know what I have been hearing from my guests and the verdict is clear: travelers think of hotels as nothing more than "docked cruise ships." From a public health perspective, hands down, staying in a private home is safer -- both for the tourist family and for kama'aina. Staying in a private home doesn't involve interaction with any other guests. And if shelter in place guidelines we have all been following for these past many months are to be believed, we are all better off staying with our own 'ohana vs. intermingling with strangers.
In a West Hawai'i Today / Herald Tribune article from yesterday (and which Airbnb won't let me link to), various Mayors are quoted:
As we come back to new normal, (they) should be in resort areas and not in our neighborhoods,” Caldwell said.
Maui Mayor Mike Victorino said he would like to keep visitors in the resort areas of his county without “utilizing our residential facilities.” Hotels and resorts should open first and reestablish themselves, he said.
That is the sound of hotel lobby money talking.
Tourists who visit Big Island do not sit in their hotel for the duration of their stay. They visit shops and restaurants in Kona and Hawi. They go snorkeling at the Captain Cook monument, swim at Kua Bay and Hapuna, wander trails near Volcano, go to galleries in Holualoa, pick up malasadas from Tex or the Punalu'u Bakeshop. From a public health perspective, what is the difference between an island visitor staying in a private home on a half acre down near Kealakekua Bay and that same visitor staying at the Fairmont Orchid and driving down to Kealakekua Bay to wonder at the magnificent pali and kayak out to the Captain Cook monument for a snorkel?
The answer is quite simple: nothing. There is no public health difference. Or, if there is one, it favors the visitor staying in a private home on the Bay. At least they were staying somewhere privately with their own family vs. intermingling at a hotel with guests from all over the world and local hotel employees. They are less, not more, likely to spread infection.
There is however a significant political difference. Our Mayor is up for re-election. Hotels contribute to political campaigns. STVRs -- even legal licensed ones -- have long been convenient whipping posts.
Let's not put up with it. Our businesses don't deserve special treatment but they do deserve equal and fair treatment that is based upon sound public health guidance. Let's band together. Let's write our county councilpeople. Heck, we can even file an action for declaratory relief -- seeking a court ruling that there is no legal or public health basis for differentiating between hotels and private short term rentals where the visitor rents the entirety of the space. We have rights -- let's exercise them.
We need to be responsible citizens in a pandemic. I'm not questioning that STVRs need to be closed for business while the 14 day quarantine is in operation. But we don't need to be sheep. There needs to be a legitimate public health basis for keeping us closed when the quarantine is revoked and tourism re-opens -- and there is not one.
Mahalo for listening. If you'd like to meet up at a socially responsible distance to discuss options, let me know in the comments. Or, if there is any other similar effort underway, please let me know that too.
Mary
