Maui

When most planners think of holding a meeting in an island paradise, they don't expect to find a wide array of wired spaces. White-sand beaches, sure. Awe-inspiring sunsets, no problem. High-speed Internet access in every meeting room and guest suite? Maybe not.

Thankfully, Maui offers a refreshing antidote from the usual all-too-remote tropical paradise. Maui's major meeting hotels are conveniently gathered in several planned resort districts, and these clusters are on the cutting edge of high-speed Internet communications. Delegates can get away from it all without being too far out of touch with their business needs at home.

World Wide Wailea

One example, the 780-room Grand Wailea Resort Hotel and Spa in southern Maui, offers not just its own water park and 54 holes of golf, and not just 22 meeting rooms and a 28,000-square-foot ballroom, but WebTV in all guest rooms and high-speed Internet access in every conceivable facility where a meeting might take place—even in its poolside cabanas.

Such "electronic pampering" is not unusual at Maui's big resorts. When the Outrigger Wailea Resort upgraded its meeting facilities in August, it made sure to add high-speed Internet access to all its meeting and break-out rooms, including its three ballrooms.

The properties that make up the Wailea Resort—Four Seasons, Grand Wailea, Fairmont Kea Lani, Outrigger, and Renaissance—have joined forces in a program called "Wailea-Wide." Within the single resort area, planners of larger meetings can count on more than 2,000 hotel rooms with function capacities for up to 3,200 people.

A more secluded choice lies south of Wailea, nearly at the end of the road, in Makena, where the Maui Prince Hotel offers plenty of space (up to 60,000 square feet) and experiences for any size meeting. And for the most seclusion of all, there's the historic luxury hotel at the end of the curvy road to Hana on the other side of the island, the Hotel Hana-Maui, long a favorite of small executive meeting groups (up to 50 people).

Wired West Maui

Other resort areas of Maui also offer excellent hotel meeting facilities that complement the requisite high-tech communications and advanced conferencing tools. The Ka'anapali hotels of West Maui include some big players, such as the Hyatt Regency, the Westin, the Sheraton, and the extensively remodeled Marriott, which festoon the shoreline in a graceful planned development of lagoons and golf courses. As the first large-scale planned resort development in Hawaii, Ka'anapali has more experience in setting up meetings than any other location on Maui.

To Ka'anapali's north are the more remote Kapalua hotels, including the recently expanded Kapalua Bay Hotel and Ocean Villas, as well as the deluxe Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua, Maui's highest-rated resort by many polls. Both these resorts have the facilities and, most importantly, the experience and know-how to host meetings. The Kapalua area has also recently invested $15 million in the creation of the state-of-the-art Kapalua Gold Academy, designed by Hale Irwin. In addition, Kapalua is home to the new 27,000-square-foot Village Course Clubhouse, which contains a multi-purpose conference room with its own communications and computer hub.

In between Kapalua and Ka'anapali are a series of more modest condos and hotels, some of which are ideal, and quite idyllic, for smaller meetings. A long-time favorite is the Mauian, a truly Hawaiian institution with simple rooms but the finest continental breakfast room on the island—and a priceless location right on Napili Beach.

Maui... Unplugged

Though Maui boasts the best meeting and resort hotels of any tropical island, with more than a dash of high-tech and Internet know-how wired in, it wouldn't be paradise without a range of superb activities. Indeed, readers of Condé Nast Traveler—who have rated Maui the world's best tropical island for eight years running—singled out Maui's lodging, dining and activities for special mention.

Maui's beaches are peerless for swimming, windsurfing, parasailing, charter fishing, snorkeling, and diving. Molokini, a submerged volcanic cone offshore from Makena, offers one of the best snorkeling and diving sites in the world; it's easy to set up charters for a group experience there. Other superb places to hit the beach are Kapalua Beach to the north, Black Rock at Ka'anapali near the Sheraton Maui, and Ulua Beach at Wailea. Maui's 16 golf courses, most of which are connected with the big resorts, are also a top draw.

But Maui's most popular spots have little to do with snorkels or putters and everything to do with history and beauty. Few meeting attendees would turn down the chance to see the sunrise from the summit of Haleakala (the world's largest dormant volcano), shop the whaling town of Lahaina, stroll the lush tropical groves and uncanny peaks of the Iao Valley, or drive the treacherous and endlessly scenic road to Hana. All of these scenic activities are day trips from any of Maui's main meeting sites.

Maui never lags behind in giving its own spin to the latest waves in tourism. Spas are the rage at resorts worldwide these days, and Maui's top hotels have quickly combined European approaches with local traditions such as Hawaiian massage. Hot lava rock massages (lomi pohaku), thatched roof huts, and seaweed treatments are available (between meetings, of course) at many resorts. Meeting planners who want to make Maui uniquely memorable can also book evening lawn parties at most resorts, complete with enchanting Hawaiian music, dancing and food.

With its resorts, beaches, volcanoes, tropical forests, gardens, historic towns, and scenic drives, Maui has an abundance of attractions for visitors, but from December to April it has even more: its own whale show as humpback whales return from Alaska to Maui's waters, a protected national marine sanctuary. Maui is where even the whales meet, at least in winter, putting on breech-and-spout shows that can be enjoyed from a whale-watching charter boat or from a beach chair at sunset. No high-tech devices required.