Hotels that are reopening hope the end of the interisland quarantine will boost business.

Reuben Burke, a guest services representative at Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort, used a UV light wand to disinfect a safety shield at the front desk of the hotel last month.

Some members of Hawaii’s visitor industry have started scaling up operations as the state gets its first chance to boost tourism since COVID-19 fears and lockdowns collapsed travel demand.

Kelly Hoen, area general manager for Outrigger Reef Waikiki Beach Resort and Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort, said the reopening of interisland travel will allow Outrigger Waikiki to build on “staycation” traffic from Oahu locals, which started about three weeks ago.

Still, few of the 130 or so Hawaii hotels that closed amid the COVID-19 drop in travel demand and tourism lockdowns are likely to reopen just for interisland travelers, said Keith Vieira, principal of KV & Associates, Hospitality Consulting.

Bob Hampton, chairman of the board of Waikiki Beach Activities, said many other tourism-dependent businesses could delay reopening too.

“We can have our staff on deck for a July 15 reopening of the entire tourism industry, but not for the lifting of the interisland quarantine.

There simply won’t be enough business,” said Hampton, whose company provides beach services to visitors and locals who frequent Waikiki.

Craig Anderson, vice president of operations for Mauna Kea Resort, said some of its restaurants may reopen if there’s enough demand when the interisland quarantine lifts, but the resort will wait longer to house guests.

Anderson said he’s already got 40% occupancy on the books for July, which will dissipate if the state doesn’t lift the trans-Pacific quarantine and the airlines don’t restore enough service to make it convenient for guests to get to the neighbor islands again.

Hawaiian Airlines spokesman Alex Da Silva said effective June 16, the carrier will increase interisland seats by 18%, or 700 more seats per day.

“We will provide up to six daily round trips between Honolulu and Lihue, Kona and Hilo, and up to nine daily round trips between Honolulu and Kahului,” Da Silva said in an email.

Setting a date to lift the trans-Pacific quarantine would help the carrier plan its network and schedule crew and aircraft to be ready to resume routes, while giving guests more time to plan future travel, Da Silva said.

While some in the industry have speculated Ige could lift the trans-Pacific quarantine as early as July 15, others have said that date could be pushed back due to caution over how the racism-inspired rioting across the U.S.