Maui residents advise visitor industry on Sunday’s reopening

Representatives from Maui told Hawaii’s visitor industry on Monday how to support them and educate visitors prior to the controversial phased return of tourism to West Maui on Sunday.

Five Maui residents were invited by the Hawaii Tourism Authority to be part of a panel at HTA’s annual conference, which kicked off Monday with some 500 attendees and runs through today.

Panelists discussed the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for West Maui’s hospitality industry, which needs to recover for the economic well-being of Maui and the state. They included Riley Coon, Triology captain and director of sustainable tourism; Makalapua Kanuha, complex director of culture for the Westin Ka‘anapali Ocean Resort Villas &The Westin Nanea Ocean Villas; HTA board member Mike White; Kahulu De Santos, director of ‘Imipo‘okela for the Outrigger Ka‘anapali Beach Resort; and Kainoa Horcajo, Mo‘olelo Group principal owner.

Daniel Naho‘opi‘i, HTA interim president and CEO, told conference attendees that the West Maui area affected by the fire accounts for 15% of the state’s economy, and economists have determined it accounts for $11 million to $13 million a day in lost revenue to the state. Naho‘opi‘i added that 9,000 residents are still unemployed.

Naho‘opi‘i also discussed how the Maui challenge is exacerbated by tourism softening.

“We are in a tourism emergency not only for the wildfires, but we are being attacked from all sides right now. The strong dollar has lured our base U.S. visitors. They are going to international destinations,” he said. “But the strong dollar has also scared away our international visitors. We have to show them the value going forward.”

Naho‘opi‘i added that “new competitors have stepped into the market with deep pockets. Fiji, Southeast Asia, Europe, they are all coming after us right now.”

But recovering Maui tourism, especially in Maui, is challenging in an environment where many in the community are still grieving and facing stressors such as where they are going to live.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that so many visitor industry workers lived in Lahaina. As many as 1,000 out of the 2,700 ILWU Local 142 hotel workers in West Maui were directly affected by the fires, according to state Business, Economic Development and Tourism Director James Kunane Tokioka.

Some hospitality workers are ready to get back to work as part of their healing or to meet financial needs. But others are apprehensive of returning to work.

White said, “The challenge that Maui faces is that the voices that you hear the loudest aren’t always representing the largest groups. It’s very important that we look at Maui for what it is. It’s an amazing conglomeration of people from varied places, different cultures, different backgrounds and different experiences and feelings with respect to the fire.”

White said it’s important to find individual solutions rather than group solutions.

“To say that everybody needs to go back to work is not right. To say that everyone that is impacted has to stay home is not right either,” White said. “Everybody is different.”

Horcajo said a lot of the Lahaina community has not “had their voices heard in ways that others have.”

“The hard part is to be able to listen to all and to try to do the best for the most amount of people,” he said. “Pono is about doing what is the best possible option for the most amount of people the majority of time. So if everyone is a little bit unhappy, then maybe that’s the right choice.”

De Santos said the hospitality industry must carefully choose the words that it uses to welcome back tourists.

“When we value our place and our people and our culture through the messages, through the visuals, we set the tone for the visitor, and we need to set that tone — it’s now more important than ever,” she said.

De Santos suggested businesses set aside wall space where visitors can share their aloha for Maui and take photographs. Her hope was that it could prevent some visitors from taking inappropriate photos or interrogating staff about their experiences.

She said some staff are anxious about the tourism reopening, “They want to be able to operate as the professionals in hospitality that they are, but they are afraid that they will fall apart.”

De Santos said she really wants to protect staff so “that they don’t fall into the trap of anger and so that our guests, our visitors, don’t fall into the receiving end of such things.”

Coon cautioned that as Maui tourism seeks to recover, it will be important not to cheapen the experience.

“Don’t discount Maui. Don’t attract the budget traveler. Don’t settle for that. It’s going to be a big step backwards if we do that. It’s going to ripple through all the different chains of the hospitality sector,” he said. “I know ‘heads on beds’ is a big thing, but don’t forget the activity people rely on, gratuities. If you are bringing in visitors where that’s not part of their culture or they are there for the cheap trip or the spiel for the free this and that — you are going to hurt a lot of your residents.”

Coon urged the industry to instead “try to find those who are compassionate. (Those) who maybe are more affluent and are willing to spend to invest in the islands to have the experience that they deserve.”

Kanuha, who has been volunteering at hubs, urged cooperation and aloha.

“We are the canoe, and the canoe is an island and the island is a canoe. We can only go in one direction, but we all have to paddle together,” she said.

The panel’s insight comes as emotions are running high as the resort area that stretches from the Ritz-
Carlton Maui, Kapalua, to Kahana Villa prepares to reopen to tourists Sunday at the start of Maui Mayor Richard Bissen’s phased plan, which delays the tourism restart for other sections of West Maui.

A date has not yet been set for phase two of the tourism restart, which will follow an assessment of phase one and will cover the resort areas from Mahinahina to Maui Kaanapali Villas. The last reopening phase is for the area from the Royal Lahaina Resort to the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort &Spa, where a majority of displaced residents are sheltering.

Gov. Josh Green, who is scheduled to speak at the conference today, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a text on Friday, “We are not displacing anyone for tourism. There will be many people in hotels and short-term rentals, now turned into longer term rentals, for many months, so to survive we will see the recovery and the economy coexisting. We are opening West Maui so people can work and begin to heal. This is what the vast majority of people need and want.”

However, this afternoon, West Maui lawmakers and Lahaina fire survivors are slated to deliver to Green a petition started by Lahaina Strong. The petition, which has more than 10,000 signatures, urges delaying the reopening of Lahaina and area hotels to tourists.

Lahaina Strong organizer Jordan Ruidas said in a news release, “Our community is in pain, deep in grief, and physically and emotionally exhausted. The decision to reopen tourism on Oct. 8, when many of our residents neither feel prepared nor capable of extending the aloha spirit to incoming tourists, seems ill-timed on the part of our government. The day-to-day uncertainty that plagues our community must be addressed as a top priority before we even consider reopening.”