Smart Meetings

Legend has it that Maui was a Polynesian demigod. It was said he was powerful enough to raise the islands of Hawaii from the depths of the sea. Maui’s power hits me in another way: I think Maui is a great seducer.

Maui draws you in most gently when you first arrive, on the drive south from the airport to the coast at Maalaea Bay. There he unveils his waters: brilliant aqua-into-teal-into-marine, white-capped. Out on the watery horizon is tiny and semi-submerged Molokini, and the mysterious and uninhabited isle, Kahoolawe.                          

Across Maalaea Bay, distant green slopes pull your eye up the 10,063-foot-high extinct volcano Haleakala, whose sunrise vantage point enthralled Mark Twain and legions of early-rising visitors in the 141 years since.

CHOOSING
About here, Maui forces a hard choice. Turn left toward Haleakala and South Maui, and arrive at the lush manicured area known as Wailea, a place of sumptuous resorts, golf courses and pristine beaches. Likewise, lovely Makena lies just beyond.

Turn right, toward West Maui, and pass a score of turnoffs to more white-sand beaches, to arrive at the old whalers’ town of Lahaina. Then you’ll travel on to the array of sugar castle-like resorts that front the gorgeous beaches of Kaanapali. Maui has bedazzled you, of course, the whole way, with vistas across the shallow waters of the Auau Channel toward the grass-green island of Lanai.

You are in Maui’s power, so you might as well let him entice you northward to the golfing and beach paradise that is Kapalua, the better to admire his fourth dancing island, Molokai, only 10 miles offshore.

All four islands are actually peaks of one large submerged island called Maui Nui, or Big Maui, which last saw the light of day around 18,000 years ago. The Auau Channel floats over formerly verdant valleys. This cradle-like connection between the islands is thought to be the reason the humpback whales come here from Alaska every year; the shallow waters stay warm and protected by the surrounding peaks, the better for the ladies to give birth and then get their calves established.

A MEETINGS PLAYGROUND
Your group is unlikely to make a big dent in Maui’s 18,000 hotel and condominium units, and the well-over 600,000 sq. ft. of indoor and outdoor function space, which includes Hawaii’s largest ballroom, the 28,000-square-foot Haleakala at The Grand Wailea. This alone can handle 3,200 of your standing attendees with drinks in hand.

But even if it could, the Maui Visitors & Convention Bureau is on hand to help. Tom Risko, CTA, director of meetings, conventions and incentives for the bureau touts the options for groups. “Maui has the finest collection of hotels in the islands, perhaps in one place in the world. There are the Four Seasons properties; The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua; the Fairmont; The Grand Wailea; the Sheraton; the Hyatt; the Westin—award-winning properties, delivering amenities and service equal to the best,” he says.

There’s also plenty to do. Maui offers you 14 golf courses, 81 beaches, tennis courts, mountain biking, hiking, surfing, sailing, kayaking, scuba diving, snorkeling, horseback riding and taking to the sea aboard a catamaran or Hawaiian sailing canoe.

OCEAN ACTIVITIES
Before you go off snorkeling or diving, give your group a preview of what they’ll see by taking them to the Maui Ocean Center, A Hawaiian Aquarium. Zagat just voted it the best family activity in Hawaii. All the exhibits, seen from both above and below water, are sparkling clean and filled with living coral. This remarkable feat is made possible by the constant movement of the seawater through the exhibits from adjacent Maalaea Bay. MOC’s waterfront setting, with lawns, palms and bougainvillea, can accommodate up to 700. 

Some of South Maui’s best diving and snorkeling takes place near Molokini, a marine sanctuary and part of the tip of an ancient submerged volcano. You’re likely to see a honu, or green sea turtle, in its natural habitat when you take to the waters. But when you consider that only one in 10,000 makes it from egg to adult, any sighting is one of nature’s miracles. The area designated as Turtle Town, off South Maui, is the most opportunistic area.

At the north end of West Maui—take the group to Kapalua Beach for snorkeling, nominated as one of the top beaches in the world by Sunset magazine. Another prime spot in the area is Honolua Bay, one of Maui’s four marine preserves. One notable outfit offering snorkeling packages is The Pacific Whale Foundation.

Additionally, from the end of the year through the beginning of May, the foundation runs whale-watching voyages out of Lahaina’s port to the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. The foundation’s handsome new vessel for this purpose, Ocean Discovery, is a big, comfortable catamaran and all its crew are trained in marine biology.

BEYOND THE BEACH
Launch your Maui experience at the top of the volcano, Haleakala—Hawaiian for “the house of the sun”—at dawn. The sunrise lights up the clouds and brings poetry to mind. Then descend the 38 miles via bicycle on a group ride through Maui’s scenic upcountry, an unforgettable start to an energized day.

Or take your group for a guided hiking expedition through a verdant canyon to arrive at a series of pools connected by waterfalls. On Maui Eco-Adventures’ Waterfall Experience, you’ll pass spiky gingers and wide-banded ferns found only in Hawaii.

See the island on horseback over the hills and valleys of the 1888 Haleakala Ranch. It’s a working cattle ranch that has been in the same family for five generations. In the company of Pony Express Tours, ride to the floor of Haleakala’s crater (after ascending to 10,000 feet) for a waiting picnic lunch.

A SENSE OF PLACE
Ensure a memorable meeting by incorporating Hawaiian cultural experiences into your plans. Some of Maui’s top hotels retain cultural advisers to present programs to their  guests. The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua offers five programs just for groups; start your meeting with a conch-shell salute followed by a chant!

Then there’s the music. Before first encounters with other nations, the early Hawaiian people made music with chants and drums. However, they later adapted the musical instruments from other lands as their own.

Slack-key guitar is one such example. Derived from the original 12-string Spanish guitar brought to the islands by early cowboys, the strings are slacked to produce the distinctive tones. Similarly, the ukulele, or “jumping flea,” came from the braguuinha, carried by Portuguese immigrant workers in the
late 1880s.

For an experience of the power of pre-contact Hawaiian music, Ulalena retells Maui’s pre-history through a dramatic live presentation in Lahaina of Hawaiian music, culture, history and dance.                 

Connecting Hawaii’s oral traditions and music with its food, the luau experience, when well done, is not to be missed. The Old Lahaina Luau, Drums of the Pacific and the Kaanapali Sunset Luau are some of the top offerings on the island. I attended the Royal Lahaina Luau. There, traditional Hawaiian preparations included shredded, slow-roasted pork cooked in the traditional way in an underground oven. It was accompanied by poi, which is made by pounding and blending taro root and water. This luau can accommodate up to 650 in a group buyout with about two months’ advance notice. The highlight of the evening was the lone young woman on a stage with the setting sun and the isles of Lanai and Molokai across the shimmering water behind her. Her hula was grace itself.

Contemporary Hawaiian menus—created with locally caught fresh fish, and locally grown produce and beef—add up to a fusion cuisine. It’s a longtime and natural outgrowth of the mix of peoples on the islands. And don’t miss the pleasure of freshly made taro chips; they’d be a delicious component of any welcome basket.

Another way to capture the essence of Maui is through a Hawaiian-themed spa treatment. For example, the Boutique Spa at The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua offers Lomilomi Massage, a hands-on healing incorporating oils blended in Maui, amid gentle Hawaiian music. At the Westin Maui’s ocean-view heavenly spa, lavender—grown right on the island—is the theme. It starts with the welcoming lavender lemonade in the lounge.

Art has a significant presence in Maui, as well, beginning with the resorts, themselves. Notable among these are the spectacular collection of nine massive bronze sculptures by world-renowned Fernando Botero and an extensive collection of bronze plaques by 20th-century master Fernand Léger at The Grand Wailea Resort. Also the Westin Maui’s array of Chinese ceramics, antiques, bronzes and 19th-century scene paintings is impressive. But for a taste of Maui’s own vision—and if your meeting in Maui carries over on Friday—take your group on the rounds of Front Street galleries in Lahaina. Their “Friday Night Is Art Night” coincides with exhibit openings where visitors meet the artists, see crafts demonstrations, hear local musicians and enjoy refreshments.

WHEN TO GO
You’ll make your best deals from late April into early May and mid-September through October. On the other hand, the first week in January brings the PGA Tour’s season opening, the Mercedes-Benz Championship, played on the toughest challenge on Maui, the Kapalua Plantation course. It would be a nice way to start the year for your incentives. Come in mid-May and see the International Festival of Canoes, culminating on the last weekend in the Parade of Canoes. Early June offers the Hawaii Sailing Canoe Race & Events, and the middle of the month ignites the star power of the Maui Film Festival.

MAJOR VENUES
The Maui Arts Cultural Center is an outdoor amphitheater that handles up to 5,000 and has hosted top performers such as Bob Dylan, Sting, Santana, Pearl Jam and B.B. King.

Maui Tropical Plantation, with four different areas amid 60 landscaped acres of tropical fruits and flowers, can take from 100 to 3,000 guests. It has a banquet room for up to 500.

A location offering exceptional ocean views from a flat, grassy area is Molokini Lookout, which is situated uphill from the three Wailea golf courses.

WEST MAUI
LAHAINA
Any story of Lahaina must begin with a tree, a great sweep of tree, an Indian Banyan. At 60-feet-high and shading nearly an acre, it’s the largest banyan tree in the U.S., and it was planted 134 years ago last month in the historic town square, now Banyan Tree Park. As Lahaina means “relentless sun,” the hope was that the banyan would grow to be an umbrella from the sun for the town’s gathering place.

Designated by the National Park Service as a protected historic maritime district, Lahaina, and its banyan, has seen it all: in the mid-19th-century people made their living here capturing and grotesquely processing the whale for its oil, judging by the array of historic photos and fierce implements displayed in the Old Lahaina Courthouse. In one season more than 400 tall-masted ships entered the harbor. Today people sail from the harbor to view the whales in awe.

Eager to relieve arriving sailors of their wages, 19th-century Lahaina had more than its share of saloons, dance halls and bawdy houses. Today, ready to delight visiting travelers, the town has more than its share of attractive restaurants, jewelry, clothing and Hawaiiana shops as well as art galleries, most in 19th and early 20th-century buildings.

KAANAPALI
Less than 10 minutes’ drive north of Lahaina is Kaanapali Resort, known for its spectacular beach, one of Hawaii’s longest. Bloody battles, a 15th-century village, a 1890s racetrack and Elvis have all colored the area’s history.

Centrally located for quick access to many of Maui’s attractions, Kaanapali is backed by the West Maui Mountains and offers a two-island view, that of Lanai and Kahoolawe.

The beachfront is lined with handsome resorts and hotels, many of which are connected by a beachfront walkway, so you can spread your group out over several adjacent hotels and they’ll still feel very connected.

In the middle of the hotel lineup is Whalers Village, which includes a mix of restaurants and retail like Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton, Coach and Tommy Bahama. It’s Hawaii’s only oceanfront mall.

The Tournament North at Kaanapali course, a Robert Trent Jones, Sr. design, reopened late last year. The Resort South course, with sweeping ocean views, was renovated just previously.

KAPALUA
Ten miles north of Lahaina you’ll find the entrance to this former pineapple plantation of 23,000 acres. The road takes you past the Kapalua Golf Academy with a downhill vista of the greens, toward the ocean and Molokai beyond. There’s a club house, a small shopping center and the flower-lined drive curving around into The Ritz-Carlton’s entry. Farther along are various clusters of private homes and condominiums. And, somewhere on the land, are 6,000 acres of flourishing pineapples, as well as the state’s largest private nature preserve.

Emphasis at Kapalua is on golf, specifically on Kapalua Golf’s 54 holes, comprised of the Plantation Course, the Village Course and The Bay Course. There’s a 10-court tennis complex with pro shop.

Kapalua Beach offers views of Molokai and the whales. It’s intimate with a crescent shape rendered in honey-golden sand. D.T. Fleming Beach, voted the best beach in the world in 2006’s Zagat and Frommers, is nearby. And don’t forget the snorkeling at neighboring Honolua Bay. Incidentally, all beaches in Hawaii are public.

SOUTH MAUI
WAILEA
About a 35-minute drive from the airport is the enclave of luxurious resorts at Wailea.

Like Kapalua, there are three prominent golf courses here, the Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed Gold Course at Wailea and The Emerald Course at Wailea, and the challenging Blue Course at Wailea by Arthur Jack Snyder. The beautiful views include Molokini just offshore.

Wailea has four golden-sand beaches that are good for swimming and snorkeling. The Shops at Wailea include Tiffany & Co, Louis Vuitton and Reyns, just the spot for discreet aloha shirts. Wailea Tennis Club is an 11-court complex with pro shop.

MAKENA
Merging with the south end of Wailea is Makena. A private enclave of 1,800 mostly undeveloped acres, Makena has one meetings-scale resort property, the Maui Prince Hotel, which has just changed hands. The location is exceptional, as are the views. Molokini is just three miles offshore, so it’s only 15 minutes via catamaran directly from Makena Beach to some of the finest snorkeling in Maui.

The ever-busy Robert Trent Jones, Jr. designed both the North and South courses at Makena. The Prince is the only hotel in Maui that owns its own golf courses. There’s a tennis resort, as well.

OFFSHORE
LANAI
Six miles offshore from Lahaina, Lanai is an 80,000-acre retreat still in private hands. The two Four Seasons resorts there are perfect for smaller high-end groups. With one overlooking a beautiful bay and the other high up in the center of the island, each property offers a completely different experience. There’s a 6,000-square-foot Conference Center for larger meetings.

Activities include big-game fishing, mountain biking, horseback riding, sporting clay shooting and archery, not to mention swimming near the dolphins and the honu, exploring on a Jeep safari, or visiting ancient historic sites with petroglyphs.

Lanai’s two golf courses are The Challenge at Manele, by Jack Nicklaus, and The Experience at Koele, by Greg Norman and Ted Robinson.

In a nicely romantic move, 4 percent of the island was just purchased by Bill and Melinda Gates, who were married there.

MOLOKAI
Ten miles across the Auau Channel from Lahaina is Molokai, a place that captures the Hawaii of a half-century ago. Hawaiians of native ancestry make up a majority of the population. For its timelessness and undisturbed beauty, parts of both Jurassic Park and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 were filmed here.

There’s also an unforgettable 2.9-mile guided hike down a sea cliff to see Kalaupapa National Historic Park on the Kalaupapa Peninsula, where Belgian priest Father Damien ministered to those suffering from Hanson’s Disease, known as leprosy, before succumbing himself.

Molokai Ranch operates a very attractive 22-room lodge designed in the Hawaiian-plantation style. Molokai offers mountain biking, sport-fishing, kayaking, mule- and horseback riding and snorkeling amid its 32 miles of barrier reef. There’s also one of the state’s longest white-sand beaches, Papohaku. The 18-hole, par-72 Kaluakoi Golf Course, by Ted Robinson, was recently refurbished.

Molokai’s great contribution to Hawaiian culture is that the island is widely considered the birthplace of the hula.

“I just feel the energy when I come home to Maui,” says the Maui CVB’s Tom Risko, who landed in 1981, forsaking Cleveland. “When I step back on Maui soil, I feel like I’m just back in heaven. I can’t wait to get into the ocean and soak up the sun.”

You have seen only part of Maui. Look at the map and you’ll see the crouching man—his head, his neck and chest are all you will get of him this time. It takes years to get to know his wild lush center and back, not to mention his submerged regions. But by the time you venture there, many visits later, you are forever his.

SUNRISE ON HALEAKALA
along, high over the sea and the valley; then they came in couples and groups; then in imposing squadrons; gradually joining their forces they banked themselves solidly together, a thousand feet under us, and totally shut out land and ocean—not a vestige of anything was left in view but just a little of the rim of the crater, circling away from the pinnacle whereon we sat. Thus banked, motion ceased, and silence reigned. Clear to the horizon, league on league, the snowy floor stretched without a break. I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world.

“While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of the coming resurrection appeared in the East. A growing warmth suffused the horizon, and soon the sun emerged and looked out over the cloud-waste, flinging bars of ruddy light across it; staining its folds and billow-caps with blushes, purpling the shaded troughs between, and glorifying the massy vapor-palaces and cathedrals with a wasteful splendor of all blendings and combinations of rich coloring.

“It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed, and I think the memory of it will remain with me always.”

-Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens), Roughing It

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Getting There

Kahului Airport is Maui’s principal airport.  Overall service is approximately 7,000 seats on nearly 200 flights per week on 14 different airlines. They fly both direct from the mainland and also on the 20 minutes’ run from Honolulu. Most major car rental companies have desks. Kapalua Airport (JHM) offers commuter propeller craft service in daytime hours only.

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Abrupt Adieu to Aloha Airlines | After 61 years of service to and from the Hawaiian Islands, Aloha Airlines operated its final fli...

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