Lahaina remains closed to visitors, but Nancy Macdonald discovers the rest of the island isn’t as busy as usual. She meets with local business owners who can’t wait for travellers to return
Riley Coon has a simple message for Canadians who aren’t sure whether it’s okay to visit Maui in the wake of last summer’s devastating fires: the return of tourism will help the Hawaiian island recover.
In all, 101 people died in the natural disaster, and 2,200 structures were destroyed, making it the most devastating U.S. fire of the last century. In the weeks after the fire, Maui lost more than $13-million a day in visitor spending, according to an analysis by the University of Hawaii. In February, six months after the fire, the number of visitors to the island were still down 23 per cent over the previous year.
“For Maui to survive, the rest of the island needs to thrive,” he says. This is a large island, Coon adds, and while the fires burned through a roughly nine-square-kilometre area, those areas cover a tiny fraction of Maui’s 1,800 square kilometres.on the North Shore where normally, it books six months in advance. It’s known for its just-caught seafood and is considered among the island’s best eateries.
Just 20 minutes from Paia, in Kula, in the fertile, volcanic slopes of Mount Haleakala, the temperature dropped by 12 degrees.– as the entire central island is known – is a region of jagged, misty hills and bumpy two-lane mountain roads. Driving Upcountry is a big part of the fun., a coffee orchard and organic farm belonging to a pair of restaurateurs who are old friends: Louis Coulombe and Stephan Bel-Robert. The Frenchman and Canadian met windsurfing years ago, Molly, our tour guide explained.
Yessnap Maui Coon Island Fire Tourism Farm Maui Coffee Lanai Mick Fleetwood Lahaina
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