Hawaii
Tourism Is Still Way Down On Maui. And That's Causing A Lot Of Problems
Government officials and tourism executives are seeking to restore tourism to Maui, a year after wildfires destroyed much of the island’s Lahaina tourism hub and battered the its key industry.
Just a year ago residents rallied to implore tourists to stay away from West Maui and let residents grieve and recover.
Now officials are planning to target travelers from Southern California – Maui’s most important market – with a campaign designed to restore what tourism executives say is critically needed business for the island’s economy.
Visitor numbers and spending remain sluggish since the August 2023 wildfires. According to the most recent available data from the Hawaii Tourism Authority, for June, the number of visitors to Maui was down 22% compared with June 2023. Visitor spending was down 27%, HTA reported.
The 216,065 visitors to Maui in June was far more than the 94,221 who came in September, the month after the fire. But the number is 22% fewer than the 276,136 who came in June 2023. And with the traditionally slow fall travel season on the horizon, the situation soon could get worse.
“We’re clearly seeing tremendous softness on Maui,” said Jay Talwar, chief marketing officer with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau. Projections show the softness could remain until March or April of next year, said Talwar, whose organization leads Hawaii’s tourism marketing to the U.S. mainland.
The press to attract travelers is a dramatic departure from the mixed messages prospective visitors received in the weeks and months after the devastating fires, said Mufi Hannemann, chairman of the board that governs the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
In a series of stories this week, Civil Beat is reflecting on what’s happened in the year since wildfires swept through Maui and what’s ahead for the island and its people.
Initially, tourists thought they should stay away from Maui, Hannemann recalls. Later they were told to come to Maui but not to West Maui. Then they were told to come, but to be sensitive to what residents were going through, as part of a “Malama Maui” campaign.
Now tourism officials are rolling out an unequivocal welcome mat, especially for potential visitors from the Los Angeles area, Hannemann says. The authority is hoping to make mixed messages a thing of the past, he said.
“We really feel all of that is behind us,” Hannemann said.
Workforce And Air Service Decline As Visitor Base Shrinks
Tourism executives on Maui are facing multiple problems as tourism lags.
One critical issue involves workforce, said Lisa Paulson, executive director of the Maui Hotel and Lodging Association. The island’s hotel workforce has declined by 5,600 since the fires, she said. And with housing prices escalating, it’s hard to recruit new workers to the island, she said.
The lack of workers is so bad that some hotels are considering outsourcing certain jobs to third-parties instead of relying on hotel employees, Paulson said. That creates fewer in-house hotel jobs, which drives more people out of the workforce. It’s all part of what Paulson describes as a downward vicious spiral.
“It’s like a dog chasing it’s tail,” she said. “Where does the solution insert itself?”
Another vicious spiral involves airline seats to Maui. Airline assets are by definition mobile: if a route isn’t popular, airlines can move a smaller plane to serve it or eliminate the service altogether. That means a smaller supply of seats for travelers — and potentially higher fares for those seats, which affects demand, and so on.
“The challenge with airlines is their assets are moveable, so they can move their assets where demand is,” HVCB’s Talwar said.
According to Paulson, Maui’s passenger air capacity is down 16% since before the fires. Much of that involves service to the key Los Angeles market, Talwar said. Losing the LA seats is especially problematic, he said, because LA serves as a gateway to Hawaii, serving travelers from destinations further east as well as those from Southern California.
“If we lose flights from LA, it’s a double whammy,” he said.
But regaining air travelers poses a major challenge. Short term, airline bookings for Maui through the end of the year are below levels reported in July 2023, the tourism authority reports. And some softness could remain for years.
A recent Hawaii Tourism Authority study found that over a third of air travelers interviewed in May said the Maui wildfires will impact their likelihood of visiting Hawaii in the next two years. Eight percent said they previously were likely to visit but are “no longer likely to visit in the next two years due to the fires.”
It’s not just big businesses like resorts and airlines that are feeling the pinch. For small business owners like Karli Rose Wilson, the drop in visitors has meant a substantial decline in her business. The owner of To Be Organics, Wilson manufactures high-end bath, body and skin care products at a design studio in Wailuku.
Wilson normally sells her products wholesale to boutiques, hotels, meeting planners and the like. After the fires, Wilson said, she shut down her factory and and shop for about three weeks and used the space for people to drop off relief supplies. Wilson’s husband, a former chef who now works with To Be, volunteered cooking meals for fire survivors.
After reopening in September, Wilson pivoted from her business-to-business model to sell more products on line. The holidays and first quarter of 2024 were good for To Be, she says, as people rallied to support small Maui-based businesses.
This ongoing series explores where Hawaii’s economy is headed and whether it can grow beyond tourism.
But that business has fallen off, and the normal influx of summer tourists hasn’t come this year.
“We’re all used to the seasonal fluctuations,” she said. “We were waiting for summer to happen at the end of June. But there was nothing. It was crickets. We never really got that summer season.”
So instead of a boost to carry To Be into the holiday season, the company has seen a decline of about 25% compared with last year, she said.
Corporate Meetings and Incentive Travel Targeted For 2025
The tourism authority and HVCB’s push in Los Angeles harkens back to a similar effort launched after the 2008 financial crisis, Talwar said. The idea is not simply to saturate the market but to use behavioral data to target advertising to potential visitors.
Talwar said the campaign will involve paid social media ads and non-skippable commercials appearing on smart TVs, but he declined to say much more. Hotels will be encouraged to bolster the advertising with their own ads and promotions
“I don’t want to go into too many details because it’s a competitive market,” he said.
The visitors bureau is also looking to corporate meetings and incentive travel to fill hotel rooms, restaurants and ballrooms. Travel paid for by companies for corporate retreats and as rewards for top performers can be especially lucrative, Talwar said.
And it’s not just money for rooms and food and beverage.
With all their travel and lodging expenses paid, pampered corporate travelers often have extra cash for shopping, spas and other activities, Talwar said.
“We see a much higher spend from them,” he said.
For hotels, booking groups in advance enables them to better manage cash flow and staffing.
And with team-building exercises often scheduled for corporate meeting and incentive trips, such travelers are likely to engage in the volunteer activities that HTA promotes as part of its Malama Hawaii campaign.
To secure more such travel for Maui, the HVCB is hosting a trip to Maui in December for decision makers for what Talway described as “key accounts,” such as corporations and industry groups. In August 2025, Maui is planning to host some 250 key meeting and incentive planners, Talwar said.
Wilson said To Be has benefitted in the past from corporate planners buying her luxury, locally made creams, oils and candles to give away as gifts. So boosting such travel will help her and other small Maui businesses that rely on tourists.
Asked whether she and her peers can survive until the new initiatives gain traction, Wilson expressed optimism.
“On Maui, I feel like we’re resilient. We’re a strong community,” she said. “As entrepreneurs, this is part of the journey — to overcome these obstacles, no matter what form they come in. And the festive season is right around the corner.”
Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
“Hawaii’s Changing Economy” is supported by a grant from the Hawaii Community Foundation as part of its CHANGE Framework project.
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Hawaiian removed free economy meals from its website today without an announcement or warning. If you are flying on Hawaiian today, you may be in for a surprise. We have received reports that, as of yesterday, complimentary Koloa Rum punch was still served.
The airline’s food page now loads an Alaska-style paid pre-order menu. It includes no Hawaii items other than Passion Orange Guava Juice, but does offer a Northwest Deli Picnic Pack, among other choices. The hot sandwich, chips, the Honolulu Cookie Company dessert, and whatever else you may remember from Hawaiian are now gone. Beer in the main cabin is $8.99, wine and spirits are $9.99, and canned cocktails are $12.99.
Updated. Hawaiian/Alaska just said – sorry folks, big error on our part.
“There are no changes to our complimentary meal service in our main cabins. During our PSS transition, several dual‑brand content updates were made to our webpages, and the link referenced in your post was unintentionally directing to an Alaska Airlines pre‑order page. We’re working to correct that now.” — Alaska Airlines.
So now it isn’t clear what this really means for travelers. The Hawaii Airlines meals page (screen shot below) was as found today and now they say these are wrong. But what really is happening, and what the plans are for meals, among other things, is not any clearer.
What changed wasn’t unexpected, but.
Until today, Hawaiian stood apart from every other U.S. airline in this one simple way. You boarded a five or six-hour flight to Hawaii and knew you would be fed something. The meal was still built into the ticket, long after others had removed it, and it stayed there for years after the food itself stopped being anything anyone called special. BOH editors have been flying Hawaiian long enough to have watched the entire tradition shift over the years.
Now the airline’s food runs on pre-ordered food, paid selections, and the same setup Alaska uses everywhere else in its network. That makes sense. The free meal was not, however, quietly removed or softened around the edges. And there are noticeably no Hawaii themed offerings. We hope that will change. The page that promised food was just rewritten, and the replacement is a paid menu.
What is still free and what is not.
Complimentary options in the main cabin are now soft drinks, coffee, and juices. As we reported on our Alaska flight from Hawaii on Monday, we also received a full-sized Biscoff cookie and were handed an expensive chocolate bar. Those are not on the list, however. In any event, this is one of the moves away from what Hawaiian flyers were used to seeing when they checked the Hawaiian Airlines website before a trip.
The food order requires using the app or website, a stored payment method, and a selection window that closes 20 hours before departure. But you can order up to two weeks in advance. If you miss the window, you can buy from the cart, as we also mentioned yesterday. This is the model used across most U.S. domestic routes, and Hawaii flights are now on it too.
Readers were honestly already prepared.
Beat of Hawaii readers saw this coming months ago. One told us to just assume no meal and be pleasantly surprised. Another said she would rather bring her own food. We both concur, and we did. A third called the sandwich basically a hot pocket. Those were not isolated complaints from people nitpicking airline food quality.
And we’ll say, honestly, that Alaska’s paid options are of far higher quality. In any event, travelers were already adjusting to a service pattern they could already see falling apart before Alaska removed it entirely from the website today.
A smaller group still wanted the meal, especially on longer flights where a snack does not get you very far. Both groups ended up landing at the very same place today. The meal is no longer an automatic assumption. It is now something you plan for, pay for, or go without, and that change may come as a surprise to some who have long flown Hawaiian.
Alaska’s system is now the whole system.
Alaska has not served free economy meals for nearly a decade. Its service is based on pre-order or limited in-flight options, and that is now the way it works on Hawaiian flights, too. The Hawaiian planes look the same as before, with the Pualani still on the tail, and the crews are still Hawaiian, but the food system behind the experience is new.
Passengers should plan to decide and pay in advance or expect few options. Honestly, this is an alignment with other airlines, so it should not come as a big surprise. That’s how Alaska has operated for years, and Hawaiian mainland flights now operate inside that same structure.
The details visitors once cared about have changed.
The sandwich got the attention, but readers were pointing in another direction. They often commented on the Koloa Rum punch, the walk-up galley that opened after main service, and the cookie handed out near the end of the flight. One BOH reader put it plainly by saying the rum punch felt more special than the food, and that probably gets closer to the real loss than all the arguments about the odd sandwich ever did.
None of those details appear anywhere on the new Alaska-branded main cabin page. The rum punch is not even in the beverage list. The walk-up galley is not described. The cookie is not mentioned.
The shift is already complete.
For years, flights to Hawaii had different expectations than the rest of U.S. domestic service. There was no app required, no payment screen, and no 20-hour deadline hanging over you before you ever got to the airport. The food showed up, whether you loved it or mocked it, and that was at least still something.
That is over now. Food is optional, planned, and paid. The Hawaii flight planning starts before you get on the plane, and what you eat depends on what you selected earlier, rather than what the airline places in front of you once you are airborne. Hawaii has joined all other domestic flights in that way, as Hawaiian was folded into the same system every other U.S. airline already uses.
Where does this go from here?
First class moves to pre-order in May under Chef Valdez. Tokyo, Sydney, Papeete, and even the long-haul 11-hour HNL-JFK run are not listed on the new international food page at all, leaving those routes unaccounted for for now and giving readers another reason to wonder what else is about to change in the Alaska/Hawaiian offerings.
Mainland economy meal service is the part we can see today, and the change is already notable. Were you booked on a Hawaii flight expecting the meal? What did you find on your tray instead?
Hawaiian Airlines food page as of April 22, 2026:
Photos © Beat of Hawaii.
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HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The search for Honolulu’s next police chief is moving into the next phase.
The Honolulu Police Commission announced it has narrowed the candidate pool to six semi-finalists, selected from an initial list of 11 applicants identified by a recruitment firm.
“The commissioners feel these six applicants exhibited the leadership and management skills necessary to lead an organization as large, complex and critical to the community as the Honolulu Police Department,” said member of the Honolulu Police Commission, Chair Laurie Foster.
“Those qualities were identified in part by surveys and stakeholder interviews conducted by the recruitment firm,” she added.
The names of the semi-finalists have not been released. Officials said confidentiality is being maintained at this stage to encourage applicants who may still be employed elsewhere.
The candidates will next be interviewed by stakeholder panels made up of community members and others who interact with the Honolulu Police Department.
The commission is expected to select finalists during a May 6 meeting, with those names to be announced afterward.
Finalists will then participate in additional interviews and a public appearance before the commission votes on the next police chief at a public meeting scheduled for May 20.
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
Pending Home Sales Increased From February to March in the U.S.
Despite higher mortgage rates, pending home sales in the U.S. were up 1.5% in March from the prior month while recording a 1.1% year-over-year decline, according to the National Association of Realtors. On a monthly basis, pending home sales were up in the Northeast and South, while they declined in the Midwest and West. Year-over-year contract signings, however, were down in every region but the South. Realtor.com
‘Untouched’ Scottish Island Selling for £350,000
An island in Scotland will be sold at auction this week with a guide price of £350,000 (US$473,441). Insh Island last sold in 2019, when the National Trust for Scotland sold it for a reported £353,000. The National Trust acquired the island from the will of a man who reportedly lived in a cave for 30 years. Daily Record
Iran War Puts a Pause on Hawaii’s Housing Market Recovery
Hawaii’s housing market was set to be on the road to recovery this year, with local interest rates predicated to decline. However, the war with Iran has caused rates to shoot back up, diminishing buyer confidence. Hawaii’s high concentration of condos and second homes keeps Hawaii’s average mortgage rates slightly higher. Pacific Business News
Unlivable Waterfront Home Outside Melbourne Sells for A$2.38M
An unlivable property in Williamstown, Victoria—a suburb of Melbourne—has sold at auction for A$2.38 million (US$1.7 million), more than A$680,000 over its reserve price. Despite its rundown condition, the sale price isn’t surprising to most, as it’s one of the last opportunities to build on the waterfront. Domain
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