The Money Shot.

Thinking of grabbing the fam (or the fiance) and jetting to Hawaii? Well, if you’re a faithful reader of travel news, you’d be inclined to believe that the scene in Hawaii right now is…dismal. Surely you’ve seen the reports: hotel occupancy in our 50th state is down. Way down. The number of visitors has declined sharply. Room rates are plummeting, but the people still aren’t coming — and the numbers are especially distressing when compared to an astoundingly-weak July 2008. It’s bad over there.

But we’re going to let you in on a big secret: our reporters just got back from Hawaii (yes, Hawaii is our next destination to launch – that’s what we were hinting at last week) and they’ve got plenty to say about scene. So before you go picturing abandoned hotels and eerily-empty beaches with palm trees swaying in the wind, allow our reporters to offer up a glimpse of what things are really looking like out there in the Aloha State:

Jessica F. says:

The Hilton Hawaiian village has apparently priced itself brilliantly – and it was packed. We heard that every other hotel was at low occupancy in Waikiki, but it certainly didn’t seem like a ghost town. Also, there were plenty of Japanese tourists around.

Hailey offers another perspective:

A lot of my hotels were almost full – in general, most of the higher mid-range and nicer places seemed pretty busy.

Finally, from Janine:

Maui was full everywhere, with the exception of Hotel Hana. A lot of the resorts slashed their prices by about half the regular rack rate though, so that’s worth noting. The flight on the way to Maui was fully booked too. I saw mostly families, but that’s probably because half the places I covered were time-shares.

Um, so, it seems fair to conclude that people are still going to Hawaii. If you go there this fall, you’re not going to encounter empty beaches peppered with abandoned hotels; you’re not going to be the only guests lounging by the pool. What you may encounter, though, is that the higher-end properties are going to be pretty full since they’re slashing rates (not a bad thing for you!) and more guests can afford these places.