Maui: Island in the Sun

If you’re one of the countless companies that pulled back incentives and meetings and are realizing their importance to your workforce and bottom line, now is the time to look at Maui. Sherry Duong, director of meetings, conventions, incentives, and international sales for the Maui Visitors and Convention Bureau (VCB), says groups are capitalizing on buyer’s-market rates and deals to return to the island, where the meetings and incentive market is steadily getting busier and pulling out of the difficulties of the past 24 months.  

Duong notes that more groups are using corporate social responsibility, ecotourism, cultural education, and teambuilding, as well as less lavish programs, to rationalize their travel to an exotic destination like Maui. And all of them are leveraging the rebound in Hawaii airlift, as there are now 155 direct flights to Maui each week—many competitively priced. This, she says, is convincing many groups on the West Coast to fly west instead of east to Florida, for example.

“Maui is where attendees come to feel rejuvenated—becoming sponges and learning in a relaxed environment,” says Duong, of the natural beauty of the island. “Groups are cleaning beaches and highways and going to elementary schools and repainting them. It doesn’t cost a lot to do teambuilding on the beach, building a native canoe and learning about the island’s cultural history. Groups are realizing the need to look ahead and book space now, while there are still discounted rates.” 

Of course, for the groups that are inclined to have traditional luxury Hawaiian programs, Maui has something for the golfer, spa-goer, water-lover, and outdoor-adventurer. 

According to Duong, a selling point of Maui relative to other parts of Hawaii is its close proximity to the islands of Molokai and Lanai, making it easy for planners to integrate pre- or post-tours into a meeting program or build in a day-trip adventure. 

Spend some time riding horses, golfing, or shooting sporting clays on Lanai. Or jump to Molokai, for fishing or unforgettable sightseeing at Kalaupapa National Historic Park. Helicopter and sailing tours make it possible to see some of Molokai’s most dramatic but inaccessible sights, including sea cliffs and remote waterfalls. Of course, there’s also swimming, snorkeling, scuba, surfing, and hiking. “You can get on a 45-minute ferry and spend an entire day on a different island,” Duong notes. The collective area of the Magic Isles is where humpback whales migrate to mate or give birth from October through May. 

The Maui VCB provides information on hotels, group activities, marketing materials for your program, and on-island destination management companies. The Activities & Attractions Association of Hawaii (A3H) also provides information on hospitality services and maintains an online activity booking service through which planners can request information on activities from agricultural tours to ziplining. 

There is no shortage of top-notch meetings properties and resorts on Maui. On the northwestern tip of the island, the 463-room Ritz-Carlton Kapalua, situated within the 1,650-acre Kapalua Resort, offers the flag’s renowned service within an elegant but casual property.

No meeting on Maui is complete without an outdoor event, and the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua has alfresco space on an oceanfront perch. The outdoor showpiece is the Aloha Garden Pavilion, which the Ritz-Carlton says is a “blank canvas” at planners’ disposal, with views of the Pacific Ocean and Molokai. Inside the 15,288-sf Ritz-Carlton Ballroom, 900 attendees can participate in banquets in rounds of 10, or 1,400 can enjoy a reception. 

Groups know they’re in Maui from the lobby, which features native artwork, koa wood paneling, and a lava stone bar, while opening out to overlook the Pacific Ocean, a surrounding pineapple plantation, white-sand beaches, coconut palm trees, and the lush West Maui Mountains. The locally inspired aesthetic touches continue in the guest rooms, with dark wood floors, travertine marble bathrooms with both showers and tubs, area rugs with Kukui floral designs, and Hawaiian print artwork in koa wood frames. All rooms have lanais (balconies), flat-screen TVs, and wireless Internet access. Attendees recharge on goosedown-feather beds with Egyptian cotton linens. 

The Ritz-Carlton sports a 10,000-sf, three-tier swimming pool with a 20,000-sf sundeck and luxury cabanas that can be reserved for all-day experiences with personal attendants. Spouse programs should allot time for the Ritz-Carlton Spa Kapalua. The 17,500-sf facility has 15 treatment rooms and uses indigenous ingredients such as pineapple, papaya, kukui oil, and coconut. Men’s and women’s relaxation lounges with volcanic-stone grotto areas, eucalyptus-infused steam rooms, and cedar saunas offer tranquility, while a co-ed, open-air lounge with a whirlpool overlooking a taro patch garden spurs interaction. 

Just outside the property, the Kapalua Resort provides golf-loving groups with the Kapalua Golf Academy and two championship golf courses, the Plantation and Bay courses, respective homes of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions (the annual PGA Tour opener) and the Kapalua LPGA Classic. For the bold ones, arrange ziplining at Kapalua Adventures’ Mountain Outpost, a 20-minute Unimog ride from the resort. Each of Kapalua Adventures’ eight lines has parallel tracks, enabling buddies to scream together. Groups also can test their lokahi (unity and teamwork) on a high ropes course.  

Because of increasingly environmentally minded visitors, the Ritz-Carlton now partners with Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ambassadors of the Environment for a fun, educational program offering guided hikes through the rainforest and the Kapalua Arboretum and sustainability-inspiring snorkeling and underwater photography lessons in Maui’s coral reefs. The property’s longtime cultural advisor, Clifford Nae’ole, meanwhile, heads complimentary tours to the Honokahua Preservation Site and is available for cultural lessons and discussions with groups.  

Further south, verdant mountains edged by sharp ridges to the right and a turquoise sea to the left, marked by whales coming up to breathe, greet groups at the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa. Located on Kaanapali Beach, three miles from Lahaina, a historic whaling capital, the 508-room Sheraton Maui leverages ample meeting and event space with the beauty of the landscape, directly facing the Pacific and featuring bamboo lamps, koa wood bowls, and rattan chairs reminiscent of the peacock shapes of ancient thrones. 

The property’s 6,560-sf Maui Ballroom accommodates up to 600 people for receptions and 500 for banquets. The ballroom can be sectioned into four salons for smaller groups, while outside, the courtyard accommodates events and receptions of up to 500 attendees. But the main oceanfront lawn is where traditional Hawaiian feasts or a themed event can spread out. 

As the sun goes down, the Sheraton Maui’s Cliff Dive Bar is the best vantage point to view the property’s daily cliff dive ceremony, a 40-year-old tradition. A native cliff diver lights tiki torches lining the bar’s oceanfront terrace, ascends a 30-foot cliff on Black Rock, and throws his lei into the sea before making the breathtaking leap. The tradition honors King Kahekili, who ruled Maui and Oahu in the 1700s and proved his strength by leaping into the Pacific from heights of 300 to 400 feet. The tradition also honors the Sheraton’s location on Puukekaa, Black Rock, a place native people believe is a portal where the souls of the dead leap into the afterlife.

The Sheraton Maui has five other F&B outlets, including Black Rock Steak & Seafood and Teppan-Yaki Dan, which, with an artistic chef preparing contemporary Japanese cuisine at each table of 10, is perfect for group dining fun. Also on the property is the Spa at Black Rock, which has seven treatment rooms and three outdoor treatment areas. It offers stone and indigenous-ingredient treatments using coconut, kukui nut, maile, and orchids.