Waikiki tourists voice support for extra fee for ‘a good cause’

By Dan Nakaso for Honolulu Star-Advertiser

An upcoming increase in the state hotel room tax of less than 1% — or $3 more per night for a $400 room — won’t deter any of nearly two dozen Waikiki tourists from coming back, especially if it provides money to restore beaches, fight erosion and prevent future wildfires, they unanimously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday.

“It wouldn’t discourage me,” Sam Powell, 33, of Roanoke, Va., said on Kalakaua Avenue in the middle of his first trip to Oahu with his wife, sister, brother-in-law and nephews. “It’s just another $3 a night.”

Visitors up and down Kalakaua and Kapahulu avenues unanimously supported the increase in the state’s Transient Accommodations Tax that begins Jan. 1 and was signed into law by Gov. Josh Green on Tuesday as Act 96.

Click here to read the full story in the May 29 Honolulu Star-Advertiser.