Vacation rental accommodations, even the legal ones, were economically decimated in April amid COVID-19 fears and tourism lockdowns.

On March 26, the state began a mandatory 14-day self-quarantine for incoming passengers on trans- Pacific flights, and the quarantine was extended to interisland flights on April 1.

Bans across the counties also rendered vacation rentals as nonessential businesses, which effectively required all of them to close during the month. Despite the government-required closures, some 5% of the units statewide were still occupied in April.

Unit demand statewide changed from 616,154 occupied room nights in April 2019 to just 16,009 last month, which equated to a 67.9 percentage-point drop in occupancy. Vacation rental unit supply fell to 319,504 room nights, a 62.2% change from April 2019. The average daily rate for a unit also fell 5.8% to just over $190.

In comparison, Hawaii’s hotels, which are deemed essential businesses, were 8.9% occupied in April 2020.

Hawaii’s hotel and vacation rental industries also suffered greatly in April due to airlines cutting flights into Hawaii, reluctance on the part of some visitors to travel and government public safety crackdowns.

Gov. David Ige has said that he plans to lift the interisland quarantine soon, but has stopped short of providing a date. There’s still no hint of when the trans-Pacific quarantine might be lifted, an action that has to take place before Hawaii tourism could begin to resume.

Lawmakers haven’t indicated when vacation rentals might be allowed to resume operations. On May 14, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell extended his stay-at-home emergency order through June 30. The order considers short-term rentals of under 30 days nonessential businesses, which means they can’t legally operate until it gets lifted.

Some of April’s vacation rental occupancy might have been a carryover from guests who were already staying in units when the rules were changed. But there were likely scofflaws as well.

Hotels across the state have cooperated with law enforcement and tourism officials to enforce the quarantine. So have some vacation rental owners, who have told guests that they had to cancel their reservations or removed inventory from advertisements.

However, some lawmakers fear that some vacation rental guests are thwarting the industry shutdown and are harder to track because they are staying at places where there might not be a front desk or host on-site.

Since most visitor arrivals are concentrated on Oahu, state lawmakers have focused vacation rental enforcement efforts there. The Senate Special Committee on COVID-19 has met with the state Attorney General’s Office, the Honolulu Police Department and the city Department of Planning and Permitting.

Kathy Sokugawa, DPP acting director, said many ideas have been considered, but to her knowledge, the Senate Special Committee has not decided which ones are being pursued for immediate action.

”We (DPP) are very encouraged by the Committee’s interest in helping counties with STR (short term rental) enforcement during this quarantine phase and beyond,” she said.

Sokugawa said the department “is not responsible for, or involved in, the enforcement of the quarantine or nonessential business orders.”

However, it has been enforcing other vacation rental violations. Since Feb. 1, the city has issued 147 notices of violation, 16 for illegal use and the rest for illegal advertisements. They’ve also issued 30 notices of order, but have not collected any fines during this period.