LAHAINA — Some visitors who arrived on Maui last week had postponed their original travel plans to show respect after the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfire, while others like Linda and Demerick Harris of Jackson, Miss., were unaware that West Maui had been the site of the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history in over a century.
All were welcomed by a visitor industry that continues to struggle two years after the fire tore through Lahaina, killing at least 102 people and destroying thousands of properties. Lahaina continues to rebuild, but employers and employees have had to adjust to a diminished economy, and the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor — once the hub of Maui’s ocean tourism industry — remains months, if not years, away from reopening.
The Harris family, including daughter Alex, 22, and her boyfriend, I.J. Brown, 23, visited Maui Ocean Center on the eve of the second commemoration of the Lahaina wildfire. They said they had no idea what the people of Maui had gone through and felt badly, but said they had been welcomed warmly by everyone.
The visitors said they were fascinated by Hawaii’s different cultures and foods and were already figuring out how to return.
“Everybody’s been really nice and friendly,” Linda Harris said.
Idaho newlyweds Gillian and Michael Hewlett originally planned to make one of their return visits to Maui in August 2023 but canceled until after their wedding.
“We always feel welcomed,” said Gillian, whose parents also honeymooned on Maui. “But we wanted to give the island time to heal, to give the local community time to heal.”
Despite repeated messaging from elected officials and the visitor industry that the island remains open to tourists, Maui Ocean Center General Manager Tapani Vuori said many on the mainland still don’t know whether they should come.
The negative messaging comes from social media posts that say visitors are not welcomed and that fire survivors resent them, Vuori said.
“There is a lot of anger in our community,” he said.
None of the dozen or so visitors to the Maalaea aquarium who spoke to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last week were aware of any negative, anti-tourism social media posts. But state Rep. Adrian Tam (D, Waikiki), who chairs the House Tourism Committee, said, “There is messaging out there that visitors aren’t welcome. It’s not from us.”
He said more marketing work needs to be done to encourage travel to Maui to counter the negative social media messaging.
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The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism reported that visitor arrivals to Maui showed year-over-year gains, but that’s mostly because the numbers were so bad last year. June arrivals to Maui were up 5.2% from June 2024 and arrivals during the first six months of this year were 11.2% higher than they were during the same period last year.
Visitor arrivals to Maui in June were down 23.3% from June 2019, and visitor arrivals during the first six months of this year were down 16.7% from the same period before COVID-19.
At Maui Ocean Center, Vuori said attendance remains 18% down from the prepandemic level.
“It’s trending positive, but there’s still not enough support for business,” he said. “It’s been challenging. There’s a common thread of whether people should come to Maui or not come to Maui. This message still is not clear.”
Other forces continue to tamp down Hawaii tourism this year, including the weakness of the Japanese yen, lingering uncertainty about the U.S. economy over President Donald Trump’s ongoing tariff wars, layoffs among the federal workforce and Canadian anger over Trump’s threats to make it America’s 51st state and other comments.
But compared to the rest of the state, “Maui’s doing worse,” said Toni Marie Davis, executive director of the Activities &Attractions Association of Hawaii Inc., known as A3H.
She estimates that Maui’s activities and attractions industry has fallen 30% because “the majority are repeat visitors, all of whom are very respectful but have gotten a really clear message that Maui doesn’t want them here.”
Another issue is that Lahaina, especially the Front Street and Lahaina Small Boat Harbor areas, was once teeming with shops, restaurants and activities for residents and visitors. But the blaze took out nearly all of the town’s tourism infrastructure, and it will take much longer to rebuild the commercial and historic properties, particularly those along the shoreline. Ocean recreation businesses are challenged too.
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The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii last week recommended four ideas for state and Maui County officials to speed Maui’s recovery by:
— Reforming the county’s review process for historic properties.
— Waiving or deferring the county’s infrastructure improvement assessments.
— Issuing state executive orders or using “already- legal county workarounds” — as the institute calls them — to quickly rebuild structures in Lahaina’s shoreline setback area.
— Providing short-term tax relief for all Maui businesses and long-term tax relief for properties in the burn area.
Grassroot President and CEO Keli‘i Akina wrote in the recommendations that “Lahaina residents still struggling to rebuild deserve our best efforts to help them heal.”
Others see the rebuilding of the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor as a priority after the fires caused $30 million in damage to the state facility.
Some boat operators that also operated out of Maalaea Harbor were able to shift their focus to that facility. But Atlantis Submarines didn’t have the option of relocating and had to close its Maui operation — its second biggest revenue source after Waikiki.
“Maui was very important to us,” said Atlantis CEO and President Ron Williams. “It’s been a struggle.”
The company lost a $10 million submarine, three boats and three shore-side operations in the Lahaina fire. One of its employees died.
For the 33 remaining Maui employees, Williams said, “we did everything possible after the fires to keep them employed. We sent some to Kona and Waikiki, put them on furlough and tried to keep their medical coverage.”
But eventually they fell victim to the overall sluggish Hawaii tourism economy.
Atlantis has another sub on Oahu it can use on Maui as well as a passenger transport ship to access the sub, but needs to operate out of the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor, Williams said.
“Lahaina Harbor is just very important for getting life back into Lahaina,” he said. “There are so many activities that are ready to go in Lahaina. It’s critical. It’s critical.”
A July 9 update on Lahaina Harbor from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources details several rebuilding projects that have yet to begin. As for when boat operations could resume, DLNR referred the Star-Advertiser to John Smith at Maui County’s Office of Recovery, who said unspecified “limited activity” could possibly begin by the end of 2025 — as long as safety improvements are completed, along with water and sewer hookups.
But Williams said it’s his understanding that Lahaina Small Boat Harbor won’t fully reopen until sometime in 2027.
Tam said he knows that segments of Maui’s visitor industry want to see the harbor come back faster.
“I understand that the harbor is important for the visitor industry,” Tam said. “I see their frustration. But the priority has to be on rebuilding Lahaina for the residents.”