As we prepare to spend time next month covering West Maui, revisiting places we’ve known for years, we’re taking a fresh look at how the visitor experience continues to evolve. Like every reporting trip, one of the first decisions we had to make was where to stay.
We booked an ocean-view room in Kaanapali, and when we finished the reservation, we both had the same reaction. The price certainly wasn’t dirt cheap, but it was far lower than we expected for that kind of stay. After writing about Hawaii travel for 20 years, we’ve developed a good sense of what different Hawaii vacations tend to cost, and this one didn’t fit the picture we had in mind. That may be the best place to start.
We didn’t assume we had stumbled onto a great deal. One reservation proves little, and hotel rates change constantly. Still, the booking stayed with us because it challenged an assumption we had been carrying. We expected an oceanfront resort in West Maui to cost considerably more than it did, so before accepting that impression, we decided to see whether the broader market supported it.
About the same time, a widely circulated travel report declared Lahaina “America’s biggest hotel bargain,” citing a 27% drop in hotel prices. The label, a data category and not a description of the town, counted rooms extending across West Maui. Expedia Group’s Hotels.com headline spread widely, while its own footnote shows the index only included data through 2025, making that comparison stale. It may still be useful information, but it doesn’t describe what visitors are likely to pay this summer. We wanted to know what was happening now, so we turned to Hawaii’s own hotel performance reports.
What the state data actually shows.
West Maui has not gone on sale, and that isn’t what the reports show. Visitors weighing a trip to Hawaii aren’t only comparing West Maui to the other islands; they’re comparing it with Mexico, Europe, and French Polynesia. What the state reports show is that the math behind assumptions about West Maui pricing is changing. In May 2026, the average room rate across the West Maui resort area was $412 per night.
West Maui also averaged less than Hawaii Island, while Wailea on South Maui outpriced it by 61%, with an average room rate of $665 in May. None of that means West Maui has become inexpensive, because that’s not totally accurate. It means a resort area that once occupied a distinctly higher pricing tier now sits alongside places it used to outprice.
While we worked through options for our reporting trip, we kept coming across August rates significantly below what we expected to find at established Kaanapali oceanfront resorts. We aren’t naming properties or quoting prices quite yet. That is partly because those details will be part of our upcoming coverage and because rates are constantly moving. This article is about the market rather than any specific bargain. For us, that was the point where one reservation stopped looking like luck.
More visitors are coming back, but the rate hasn’t kept pace.
West Maui hotels sold more than 15% more room nights this May than they did just a year earlier. Average room rates increased only about 2% at the same time. Looking at the first five months of this year, average room rates actually declined.
In most of our hotel markets, stronger demand pushes prices higher, and in West Maui, it has not. More visitors are returning, but the pricing premium that once defined the region has yet to return with them. The practical result is that travelers are finding an oceanfront West Maui vacation more attainable than many, including us, would have expected.
The two easy explanations do not hold.
The obvious explanation would be that new lower-priced hotels have entered the market and pulled the averages down. The reports don’t support that. West Maui had about 218,400 available room nights this May, compared with roughly 219,800 a year ago and 221,200 in May 2019. Essentially the same hotel inventory has been available throughout, starting pre-Covid.
Another explanation is that West Maui has not fully recovered, and prices will naturally snap back as demand continues to return. The reports don’t support that either. West Maui sold about 140,300 room nights this May, compared with about 166,700 in May 2019, still roughly 16% below its 2019 level. Occupancy reached 64%, against 75% in May 2019, a gap no other resort region reflects.
Wailea has returned to roughly its 2019 room nights, and Kauai has actually surpassed them. West Maui remains further from its 2019 price footing than any other major resort region in the state. Those figures don’t tell us how any individual hotel decides what to charge, nor should they. They do explain why visitors today are encountering a different market from the one many of us still expected to find.
What visitors are likely seeing.
Most travelers never read the hotel performance reports. They search for rooms, compare prices, and decide whether a trip feels worthwhile, which is exactly what we did.
We aren’t identifying the resort, the room category, or the rate we booked yet because this article isn’t about a single property and because we are also likely to review our stay. Our booking fascinated us in part because, as we researched further, it revealed a broader shift in West Maui rather than an isolated opportunity.
For years, many repeat visitors assumed an oceanfront stay in West Maui meant paying a substantial premium. Based on what the state reports show, that assumption no longer holds.
What this means, and what it costs.
We’re returning to West Maui to report, not to analyze spreadsheets like this. The reservation led us to a question we hadn’t expected to ask, and the data answered it more resoundingly than we anticipated.
Visitors can receive more for their travel dollar in West Maui today than at almost any time we can remember. That’s worth knowing before crossing West Maui off your list because you assume it is unaffordable.
The same data reveal another side of the shift. West Maui has not yet regained the pricing power it once enjoyed, and the businesses and communities that depend on tourism feel that every day. Visitors are finding an experience that feels more attainable than many expected, while West Maui itself is still working its way back to where it was.
We’ll learn much more during our time there than any calculation can tell us. We’ll be walking the beaches, revisiting familiar places, talking with people, ones we know and those we don’t, and seeing firsthand how West Maui sits today.
Before we’ve even left Kauai, however, one thing has already surprised us. We will be looking closely at what those rates and other expenses actually buy once we are standing there, and we will report what we find. The assumptions we had going into planning this reporting trip had already proved wrong, and the state data suggest many other visitors may be carrying the same beliefs.
Have you looked at a West Maui vacation lately, or did you cross it off, assuming it had become unaffordable? What did you find the last time you checked?
Lead Photo at Kaanapali Beach.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
Some of the most meaningful parts of Hawaii are the ones visitors walk right past without knowing they are there. We’ve spent nearly 20 years finding them firsthand for BOH as full-time Hawaii residents reporting on travel, culture, and island life, and telling you what they mean for your trip. Join us →
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Yes, I remember a couple of years ago the price for Ka’anapali timeshare 1-bedroom with partial ocean view units were around $800 not including resort fee/tax. I’m visiting in October this year and the price is around $525 not including fees.
This just means pricing finally caught up with reality. We recently switched from a planned five-night stay to eight nights because the numbers finally are working better. That was a pleasant surprise and makes for a much better vacation.
We kept waiting for prices to come down, but eventually realized we’d been waiting so long that we’d missed out on years of visiting one of our favorite places on earth. So we’re coming back! Look forward to your report too.
I wonder how much of this change is repeat visitors returning versus first-time visitors discovering Maui for the first time. Those are two very different stories and I haven’t seen any data on this.
I still compare every Hawaii trip against Mexico especially and other places before I book. Maui has definitely become more competitive again, but it isn’t winning each time for me yet.
I’ve noticed something interesting too. Friends who wouldn’t even consider Maui last year are suddenly asking where we’re staying. I don’t think perceptions change overnight, but there is definitely something that’s happening.
You missed the obvious. One of the major attractions for West Maui, the city area in Lahaina, burned down. So hotels dropped their prices to keep attracting visitors. Economics in action. The prices, incidentally, still don’t mean the vacation is inexpensive, as we all well know.
This is a timely article, I just booked a 14 night day stay in Ka ‘anapali over the Thanksgiving holiday and the week following it. It’ll be our first time back to Maui since the fires, which for a while we weren’t sure we’d ever go back with the anti-tourist fallout that went on after that..
Anyway, much to my surprise, there were deals aplenty to be had. Granted, lodging is still Very expensive there, so you’re not going to cancel your trip to Key West and go to Hawaii instead, but where Hawaii travel is concerned, the rates were comparable to what I’ve seen on other islands and what you’ve come to expect to pay to visit the Aloha State.
As such, we are super excited to return to our forever Island. This will be our first ever two week vacation, and we decided to spend it in our favorite place. We are just hoping the aloha spirit is alive and well, as it seems to be by all accounts…
Even if prices have declined somewhat , it’s hard to make the case that West Maui is providing more for the travel dollar relative to comparable destinations. That $412 average room rate is actually closer to $550 once you throw in resort fees and hotel taxes. Just because you can get a room for less on Kaanapali than on Waikiki doesn’t make West Maui inexpensive. Just less expensive.
Aloha!
Last November, I booked a studio with a partial ocean view at Honua Kai for a September 2026 stay. I always try to book accommodations with a cancellation policy, which allows me to keep an eye on rates after I’ve made a reservation.
Over the following months, prices continued to increase, so I felt pretty good about the deal I had secured. Then, last month, I checked again and was surprised to find a one-bedroom partial ocean view unit at Honua Kai for $566 less than my original reservation.
Not only did I save over $500, but I also upgraded from a studio to a one-bedroom unit. It was definitely a nice surprise!
Does the rate “stand alone” or are there now additional expensive “resort fees” and “parking fees” not included in the quoted room rates? Those things that used to be “free” but have now been separated out from the published room rates (and make the rates look better). And in Maui-what are the daily room taxes on those rates that aren’t reflected in the rate quotes? You have been pretty clear on those added fees when you review places after your stays and it will be interesting to see the “real” prices on the bills.
Our timeshare and maintenance fees did not increase the past two years for our Ka’anapali 2 bedroom ocean view unit. The only thing that increased were food prices and airfare. We normally take a shuttle or uber, so increased rental car prices didn’t really affect our trip. We were in Maui for 10 days in April and are headed back the first week of August. I am looking forward to your reporting to see how it compares to our experience!