Maui beckons tourist dollars
Island’s traveler-dependent economy reels as vacancies, joblessness surge after fires
KAHULUI, Hawaii — Richie Olsten has been in Maui’s helicopter tour business for a half-century, so long that he has developed a barometer for the tourism-dependent economy: rental cars parked at the island’s airport.
There are so many since wildfires killed at least 115 people in the historic town of Lahaina that Olsten is worried about a fullblown economic catastrophe. Restaurants and tour companies are laying o ff workers, and unemployment is surging.
State tourism officials, after initially urging travelers to stay away, are now asking them to come back and help Maui recover by spending their money. Airlines have started offering steep discounts, while some resorts have slashed room rates by 20% or are offering a fifth night free.
“I know what a terrible disaster that was. But now we’re in crisis mode,” Olsten said. “If we can’t keep the people that have jobs employed, how are they going to help family members and friends that lost everything?”
The number of visitors arriving on Maui sank about 70% after the Aug. 8 fire, down to 2,000 a day.
Olsten’s Air Maui Helicopters now operates one or two flights a day, compared with 25 to 30 before the fires.
As Air Maui’s director of operations, Olsten said his company has laid off seven of its 12 dispatchers. Pilots have been spared because they only get paid when they work. Typically, they fly eight times a day, four to five days a week. That has fallen to one day a week, and only one or two flights.
Many Maui hotels are housing federal aid workers and Lahaina residents who lost their homes. Even so, only half of available hotel rooms are occupied, said Mufi Hannemann, president of the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association.
Even those in South Maui, 30 miles south of Lahaina, are half empty. Hannemann called the situation “pretty grim.”
One of Maui’s most venerable restaurants, Hali’imaile General Store, laid off about 30 workers and temporarily closed after business shrank to one-tenth of pre-fire levels.
“It just fell off a cliff,” said Graeme Swain, who owns the place with his wife, Mara.
Mass layoffs are showing up in government data. Nearly 8,000 people filed for unemployment on Maui during the last three weeks of August compared with 295 during the same period in 2022.
University of Hawaii economists expect Maui’s jobless rate to climb as high as 10%. It peaked at 35% during the COVID19 pandemic, but in July was just 2.5%. And this time, there are no pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program loans for businesses, nor any enhanced unemployment checks for the jobless.
One reason visitor traffic plunged is that Hawaii’s leaders, joined by Hollywood celebrities, told travelers to vacate the island.
The day after the fire, the Hawaii Tourism Authority, a quasi-state agency, said visitors on “non-essential travel are being asked to leave Maui” and that “non-essential travel to Maui is strongly discouraged.”
The agency said the community needed to focus on recovery and helping those who had to evacuate.
That message has since changed. “Maui’s not closed,” Mayor Richard Bissen said in a recent interview.
People shouldn’t go to Lahaina or the surrounding West Maui area — “It’s not a place to stare,” Bissen said — but the rest of Maui needs tourists. “Respect the West, visit the rest,” is the motto some have adopted.