Economist says Maui
leading isle growth

But Kahului Airport needs
a longer runway, Leroy Laney says

By Gary Kubota
Star-Bulletin

WAILUKU -- Maui has regained the lead over the Big Island as the economic growth leader in Hawaii but it needs to complete the Kahului Airport runway extension to remain competitive, says First Hawaiian Bank chief economist Leroy Laney.

While job creation in Maui so far this year has outpaced all other counties, the Valley Isle's hotel occupancy fell 4 percentage points for the first half of 1997 compared with the same period last year, Laney said today. Meanwhile, occupancy on the Big Island has surged.

"These (economic) trends underline more than ever the importance of extending Kahului's runway to allow Maui to compete with the Big Island," Laney said. "Failure once again to gain approval for Kahului's runway extension would be tragic."

Laney, focusing on the "Outlook for the Maui County Economy in 1997 and 1998," was scheduled to be the guest speaker at a Maui Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Aston Wailea at noon today.

According to the text of his speech, Laney notes that Maui lost nine percentage points of visitor market share in the neighbor island eastbound market to the Big Island, after the opening of the extended runway at Keahole Airport to international flights.

He said if all goes well, Maui could have an airport receiving international and longer distance mainland flights by the end of 1998. But opponents argue that the island is ill equipped to handle international flights and fear it could leave Maui open to alien species and too many visitors.

Laney says Maui could benefit from international flights because it has a larger activities industry than any other county relative to its size. The premier Maui theme destination, the Maui Ocean Center at Maalaea, is to open in January, 1998.

The percentage of new jobs on Maui, 2.8 percent in the first half of this year, came mostly from one-time retail and hotel hiring, as a result of the re-opening of the Sheraton Maui and the 265,000-square-foot Maui Marketplace on Dairy Road. Those projects generated a total of 730 new jobs.