For the first time the state notes a reluctance to visit Hawaii with travelers uncertain about how well they will be received among other issues.
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89 thoughts on “This Jolt To Hawaii Travel Will Last Years”
Hawaii Tourist authority and Maui Visitors Bureau are still pumping out Lahaina as a destination. it was the number one tourist destination 60 years ago when the Kaanaopali developers restored Lahaina’s ancient ruins to create a reason to stay in Kaannapali.
Lahaina has burnt down , 100 people died, people are still missing in the ocean, there are 18 suicides recorded of fire victims staying in the hotels.
the free official guide book Experience Maui, has false advertising. It recommends 19 things to do in Lahaina, but they burnt down and are barricaded closed.
10 square miles and all of historic Lahaina town are gone!
Taxes upon taxes upon taxes. Maui has been out vacation destination for the past 30 years. Not any more!
It looks more likely that we will have a government shutdown.
In which case, Air Traffic Controllers and TSA employees
would be working for free. Not all of them would show up for work
which would create significant flight delays and the resulting chaos.
Really hoping this doesn’t happen.
A little off subject, but as predicted individuals with temp housing on the westside are receiving their vacate notices to be out by the end of September regardless if you’ve secured new housing or not.
It’s blowing up all over social media that the return of tourist to the westside is causing residents of Lahaina to be thrown out of their temp housing.
Richard is correct.
A total of 800 fire victims had to move out of the Westin Hotel and the Outrigger Honua kai.
18 fire victims have done suicides in the hotels.
Dial 988 for help.
It surprises me that nearly all of the comments regarding this .5% tax pertains only to visitors. The residents are also affected. General Excise Tax is what small business owners have to pay . This extra surcharge on top of the 4% really adds up! It is crazy that the State also plans to add it to our groceries!! We are being taxed out of paradise with the increase in property tax ($200 this year ) and on Kauai a 9.5% increase in electricity! This .5% surcharge was recently implemented on Kauai and will stay for ten years, supposedly for “infrastructure”.
Valerie be thankful you don’t live in California.
Gasoline is $6.50 a gallon today, and electric, water and natural gas bills have all increased over 100 % in the last three years. Housing is also crazy.
This is a global event and doesn’t look like it will end well.
I live in CA and my electric, water and natural gas bills have most definitely Not gone up anytime near 100%. Where is those happening?
Peg M
Glad we can agree the price of gasoline and housing are astronomical.
I forgot to mention food price inflation.
My natural gas bill is actually up 300% in the last 3years.
If your utilities are less you are lucky, but surely we can agree inflation is really awful.
Yep, food and gas have really gone up, I thank my lucky stars that we do not pay nearly as much as they do in the EU. I certainly hope that we see inflation everywhere continue to drop. I feel for those who have been affected by natural gas bills like yours. I’m lucky to have not experienced this problem, hope they get those maintenance issues dealt with soon.
As you say, this is a global event and I sure hope we continue to see improvement.
On my recent visit to Hawaii, I was interested to see that prices are just a little bit higher than where I live. Though we love our visits it’s always been a pricing place to go. But we still do!
How about if the Hotel California and others in Vegas starts to charge every resident from Hawaii $50.00 for staying at the hotel. Image the outrage!!! Governor Green thinks the islands are just a Monopoly game. You land on an property with a hotel and pay a fee. Your past Governor and now Green act like the two guys from the movie, Dumb and Dummer.
Let’s be real. The outcry to not come to Maui was heard by many. “Unsocial media” keyboard warriors guilted visitors for being anywhere on Maui and being heartless after the wildfires. Green might have asked people to leave room for displaced residents but also invited them all all back – and that hasn’t helped. The loud minority who never wanted tourism spoke louder – grew angrier and told tourists to stay away. It has had a lasting effect and now all kanaka alike are suffering.
Fully agree. So do many, many individuals on social media.
This could possibly be a turning point, albeit a slow and small one to start for Hawaii.
As I have mentioned many times in the past. Hawaii needs to diversify its’ economy away from the one trick pony of tourism. It has been utterly painful and awful for local residents to be overrun by too many people for years now.
The reason why this could be a turning point is because climate change is in the spotlight and quite possibly linked to the wildfires that occurred on Maui.
If the state and so many visitors Truly believe in wanting to curtail this threat to the islands and the entire earth, they would put their money where their mouth is and reduce their carbon footprint by Not using the only means to travel here, which is flying. I don’t believe that will happen as most people are selfish and only think of themselves and their own pleasure.
On the other hand, there is the power of the economic cost to vacation here. If the prices stay as high as they are and get even higher, more people will stay away. That may be the only saving grace for the climate change crisis and other just as important negative environmental impacts to these beautiful islands that result from over tourism.
Just what visitors need to hear, another tax being added to their overtaxed trip. Hawaii wonders why visitors are going elsewhere. We understand the need to help Maui. The problem is, with each new tax and increase in cost of accomodations and everything else they are making it too expensive for people to come. Soon only the rich will be able to come and they won’t be able to make up for what the masses may spend. We would love to come back to Maui but it needs to be more reasonably priced for that to happen.
Another observation I have made is that even though most resort accommodations and amenities are nice, rooms and amenities are not always updated to a standard that reflects the price asked and experience/expectations of the people who have the money to spend expect.
So-called academic economists publish a forecast and now its accepted as dogma? Please. Economics isn’t even a science – all the botched predictions of the last fifty years by “experts”(remember the dot-com crash, and the housing crash of 2008?) were wrong.
Maui will recover, but my hope is that it will take time – enough time to develop alternate and sustainable economies. 7,000 tourists/day is too much for this small island.
I’d love to go back to Maui, but as the article points out, it’s too costly for the average person. If they want to attract more like me, they are going to have to forget the haydays of the past and reduce prices.
For me, Lahaina was the major draw card. There is more to Maui than Lahaina though and so I’d go back were it financially reasonable.
Cheers
Brian
Governent incompetence helped allow this disaster to happen (i.e., no land management; poor infrastructure; no wildfire risk mitigation for years) and now government incompetence will allow the fall out from this disaster to continue (where are the updates and news conferences concerning Lahaina?; confused messaging). Not to be lost in this is Hawaii tourism out-pricing many tourists. We saw a 38% increase in the condo we rented from 2022 to 2023 as an example (with crushing taxes). The sad summation is things wil get worse for the locals who depend on tourism for their livlihood. Like many places it can be sadly said, you get what you vote for.
Untill the vacant sugar and pineapple plantations that are covered with weeds and other growth are cleard,, the fire danger will continue.
The owners of these plantations should be notified to clear their fields of all weeds and other growth. If they elect not to, they should be fined and those revenues could be used for contractors to clear the fields.
Well everybody. Seems like .5 percent isn’t very much. Well just add that to Hawaii Transcient Accomodations tax 10.25%, Hawaii general excise tax 4.71% , resort fees,parking,rental car rates, activities, and even the new environmental climate change fee 50 dollars. Sorry now 50.25 with the .5 percent. Sorry I forgot dining out or groceries. Sorry I forgot cleaning fees or towel fees or an extra cup of coffee. May I go on or do you feel like you’re being nickel and dimed. The governor stated everything so do the math. It may even include tax on your hotel deposits.
So why do people stay at hotels?
Condos in Kihei- no parking fee, no resort fee, certainly no towel fees… condo owners have beach chairs, boogie boards, coolers, spices, and lower nightly fees.
Save money. Come back soon.
Not to say all condo owners are dishonest but what if a tourist books and the owner don’t show up with a key to let you in. He then maybe don’t answer his cellphone and the tourist is stuck with nowhere to stay. Who wants to risk that? Or maybe the place is smelly or a dump when they show up. Most hotels have a pool in which a condo may not and most the cleaning fee and non refundable deposit are hundreds of dollars. At least hotels have more than one room and many rooms available. Who likes a scam from some condo owner? No tourist.
Wow, that’s quite a lot of anxiety you have about short-term rentals. You are probably talking about .001% that have these kinds of problems. Short-term rentals have been a traditional accommodation option in Maui since the 1960’s. Some of my friends here in South Maui are owners, and not one of them is as you describe. They all have beautiful properties and are conscientious hosts.
There are 13,744 legal vacation rentals on Maui. I doubt they would be operating successfully if they were “smelly dumps” that were stranding guests.
We have stayed in a condo at least 25 different times and have never had any serious problems although we never rented directly from an owner. We have rented through local
property management companies, VRBO, Airbnb and Castle Resorts. We did stay at one unit 4 or 5 times that was a bit
rundown, but we knew that in advance and we paid a below average daily rate.
Absolutely true. Squeezing the tourist. Where has all these additional taxes and fees gone? Infrastructure, the roads and streets are terrible, unkept and floodable during heavy rains. The electric grid 3rd world, ancient wooden poles carrying the power, functioning as kindle for the Maui fires. Lack of affordable housing for the residents, yet continue building high end hotels and condominiums on lands that are available for affordable housing. No new efforts in education, creating fair wages or reducing the cost of utilities. This is criminal government management and yet the residents continue to elect a governor and all other political candidates from the same party. My annual 3 week vacation to my Kaanapal timeshare will be taken
Continued.
Another possible contributing reason for the slowdown has been mentioned here before in both BOH articles and in the comments:
Simply put: “What is there to DO on the West Side now Lahaina is gone”? While touring the beautiful natural sites obviously remains a big draw, and many businesses remain open. the fact is, many repeat travelers have had their favorite commercial, cultural, and entertainment venues either destroyed or closed indefinitely either in Lahaina or elsewhere. Lahaina Town was the center of gravity for West Maui and its loss has left a gaping hole in the tourism infrastructure there that can’t be filled even by the sum total of the remaining businesses…
JMHO
Best Regards
With all due respect, I cannot agree. The hustle and bustle of the town, trying to find parking, the harassment of tourists by some business owners… tripping over sidewalks – it was really only shops and restaurants. The draw was the banyan tree and some historic landmarks. The sad part was the loss of all of the residential area. Maui lives and it’s beauty lives on…
I don’t always go into Lahaina even though I’ve only stayed on the west side
Since the pandemic Maui accommodations prices got ridiculous that’s my main reason for not seeing myself go in the near future.
Only time will tell what happens there
There might be other reasons to account for some of the slowdown in tourism to the island as well:
The American consumer as a group are cutting back due to the economic headwinds they’ve been facing, this includes the top 10% who drive much of the premium tourism market . Many of the rest of the folks who travel for a special, infrequent, and costly vacation may be put off by the sheer cliff of pricing for some regions including Hawaii as a whole. Perhaps many have also maxed out their credit cards and are now in a paydown cycle and are spending only for absolute necessities?
cnbc.com/2023/08/23/credit-card-spending-growth-is-slowing-after-reaching-record-highs.html (Cont below)
Best Regards
We here on the mainland feel the loss in Maui. The images are heartbreaking. I think Tourists from all over the world are confused by media perception of “Stay away from Maui” “They are asking people to leave right away”. Then the next news is Maui is looking for visitors? Huh? a bit of a mixed message to the public, and especially tourists. It is my belief based on what I have heard, that Folks need to stay away from Lahaina. If I am reading the Tarot cards correctly. I fully understand, but there are those “Looky- loos” who have to go see. To those folks, yes stay away.
Hi,
The impact on Hawaii’s travel industry is undeniable. It’s crucial to support local businesses and prioritize sustainable travel to help the islands recover. Together, we can preserve Hawaii’s beauty for future generations. Thanks for sharing!
Hawaii governor said stay away. Well when you make your bed then you have to sleep in it. Seems everyday a new lawsuit hits the surface.
With all the ash that flew in the tradewinds is it safe to breathe or step anywhere or is the whole island considered a resting place. Hotel prices seemed to skyrocket and make it non affordable for the average tourist. Seems as bad as a divorce.
Hawaii got the mine. The tourist got the shaft. Hawaii got the ring. The tourist got the finger.
“Additional 5% GET (Sales tax) Maui county surcharge starting 2024” sounds a bit high. Did you mean 0.5% which sounds more believable?
“an additional 5% GET (sales) tax surcharge.” Yep. Stop right there. This new tax, on top of ALREADY exorbitant taxes, fees and surcharges just exhibits how completely out of touch the tourism bureau and Hawaii State Government is and how exponentially lousy they are at governance.
The tragedy of the Maui wildfires is only exceeded by the travesty of how local authorities dealt with it before during and after. Certainly, it will be years before Maui’s full recovery.
Wow, Maui is going to tax residents so much that they’ll be hurting!!! Sales tax is regressive and is hardest on the lowest-income residents. Where will this money go?
The GE tax will go up .5% not 5% in January as stated in your article.
I am here in Lahaina-most beaches are near empty! the handful of restaurants open are near empty! airport is near empty !…with Green New Deal’s inept leadership and shifting communications “leave the island of Maui…no, come back to unaffected areas…no, stay away from Lahaina (and unaffected Kapalua/Napili resorts/restaurants….” as Green blames a “Fire Hurricane” (heyJosh, this does not exist anywhere; you literally made it up!) and the “climate Cri$I$” instead a myriad of incompetence (no fire prevention, no water, no sirens, you and other emergency guys off island etc..) you have literally Scared Visitors into coming Back anytime soon!!! No visitors = no jobs = no livelihoods = locals leaving the island = no economy
Why do people in Hawaii keep electing the same people over and over again?
Starting January 1, 2024, Maui will implement an additional 5% GET (sales) tax surcharge. Visitors and residents will all pay that on everything from groceries to accommodations.
What happened to all the money they get now from the Get? Not only will this hurt tourism but it will drive people out of the islands that are already struggling.
Not even wealthy tourists will continue to go as there are plenty of other places they (and myself) will go that don’t keep raising prices.
Your politicians are corrupt but hey, keep voting for them as they drive tourists and you away.
In answer to you first question:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
― Alexander Fraser Tytler (1790)
Bingo!!
This situation with the Maui wildfires and visitors being reluctant to return due to locals not rolling out the welcome mat, is simply the culmination of the over tourism problem that has never been plaguing Hawaii for many years and never adequately addressed by the State. Hawaii has become far too dependent on tourism. All the eggs are in that one basket and the Maui fires have made that more apparent than ever. There doesn’t seem to be an easy solution to this glaring problem. One thing I do know, is that if Hawaii continues to have tourism as its’ primary means of revenue, it will not be good. There are too many bad things that can happen, which easily disrupts this revenue stream and completely throws the local economy in turmoil.