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.