"Last December, the company opened a new store in Kapalua to serve West Maui after the loss of the Lahaina location. Robertson described extremely slow business there this fall, worsened by the closure of the Kapalua Resort golf courses from September to early November. "It was almost like a ghost town up there, until just a couple weeks ago around Thanksgiving," he said."
"Hawaii is facing a slower than usual holiday season, as arrivals are trending down ahead of the last major peak of the year, Christmas and New Year's. What's typically a busy time for Hawaii businesses has so far shown fewer, higher-spending traveler s, tighter budgets and an overarching uncertainty of what's to come. "Everyone's keeping their fingers crossed that between now and Christmas and into the New Year's, it's going to be good," Jeff Robertson, the owner of bike shop and tour operator Maui Sunriders, told SFGATE."
""We had a really, really soft summer compared to what a lot of us were hoping for, especially coming out of a really good holiday season in '24 going into '25, and then it died off," he continued. "We haven't been able to order a lot of the items that we normally would stock, you know, bikes on our floors and things like that, because we just have to be smart. We just have to be thinking about the future.""
Arrivals to Hawaii are declining ahead of the Christmas and New Year's peak, producing a slower-than-usual holiday season. The period is seeing fewer but higher-spending travelers, tighter budgets among businesses, and broad uncertainty about future demand. Maui Sunriders lost its Lahaina shop in the 2023 fire and opened a Kapalua store last December, but business in West Maui remained extremely slow through fall, worsened by temporary golf course closures. Some improvement occurred around Thanksgiving and into December, yet businesses are being cautious about inventory and future planning amid concerns about post-holiday conditions.
Read at SFGATE
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