Aloha to all! I realize it has been a little while since we have published anything here… it’s been a crazy bit of time for us in Maui. Thank you for stopping by and giving a little read.
Maui has had some hard times in the past few years. Most of us (in the world) really went through it four years ago and the recovery for us was looking pretty good… at least until we had some uncontrolled wild fires sweep through parts of the island bringing untold devastation.
It has definitely been challenging. Many people lost lives… family… friends, many people lost property and most of the islands’ economy was shut down.
Our island was shut down before, a few years ago. I had thought that maybe our recovery from this recent shut down would be similar, but it is not. Things are very different, and things are very… weird.
I know that there are many posts and articles out there on internetland that have been telling people to go away, or that Maui doesn’t want you and other similar type tones. I guess this writing is in a sense a response to that sentiment as it seems those that shout the loudest – though they may be heard more, they represent less. Maui needs you… and you can help.
Maui is a very unique place. It has rated very strongly as the best island in the world many times over. It is definitely a great place to visit and it is a great place to live and raise your kids. Though some people like to pretend that tourists are the enemy and try to make them not welcome, this is most definitely not the prevailing viewpoint. In fact, Maui would not be what it is without our tourist support. Anyone that would tell a tourist to “go home” has not really thought through how that would in fact affect their life.
We have a very precarious economy here in Hawaii – and in Maui specifically. We are about 2500 miles from any major body of land and the civilization that comes with that. We are very limited on what we can import and export. In fact, our economy would not resemble anything close to what it is today with the absence of tourism. It’s not like we’re sitting on oil. People made a dollar or two off of pineapples and sugar cane here once upon a time, but all of that has disappeared as well.
It’s not like we’re going to be able to manufacture a bunch of things here and ship them around the world and be net positive – especially since most of the things that we could make would need to be made from stuff that was imported to the islands in the first place. Now we do have some smaller scale manufacturing and creation going on that would certainly be desired elsewhere to help bring money into the islands, but it is definitely on the smaller side of things.
What we do have though is a beautiful island that people from all over the world have dreamed about coming to. Thankfully people have been coming over the years, but as I said before, it has lead to a precarious economy.
You see, in Maui we have about 150,000 people that live here. However, we see about 2.5 million tourists a year! That means that on some weeks we could possibly have more tourists on the island than residents. Clearly there needs to be some sensitivity in how tourists interact with our island, but we do need to recognize that our economy (as we know it) has a significant dependancy on tourists coming in and spending some money.
When I say “spending some money” I’m not even just referring to the specific tourist activities. It’s everything. It’s buying the coffee in the morning, going out to lunch, popping into the grocery store, filling up the rental car with gas. All of these more regular life things affect many, many people here. When you live in a small place but usually have 25-50% more people visiting, spending money on life, and then those people either stop coming or just don’t contribute to the normal economy here – there are drastic ramifications.
The restaurant that usually employs 50 people now can only carry 40. Those 10 people that are laid off are also not buying food or coffees like they used to. Which, in turn, results in other places needing to lay off more people. On and on down the so-called economic “food” chain store after store tightens and tightens until it hurts.
So, we need you. We need people to come back and live a little life with us. Come, grab a coffee and walk the beach. Have a glass of wine and watch the sunset. Maybe you can afford to be a bit of a bigger spender and explore the islands with a West Maui Molokai Helicopter Tour or by attending one of the best luaus in Maui. However you can, you can help in our recovery here.
Maui is open… in fact, it never closed back in August. You can help. Maybe you cannot come right now, and I get that. But you probably know someone that could or is thinking about it. You can still help, by sharing this article with them. Let’s get the word out. We need people coming and living life with us as we rebuild from the ashes.