Tagaloataoa Delsa Moe, PCC VP of Cultural Presentations, shared the following update on Iosepa as the summer 2026 sailing season approaches, and related announcements.

According to Aloha State Daily online news, Mark Ellis, PCC Director for Voyaging Experiences centered on the 57-foot waʻa kaulua (twin-hulled voyaging canoe) Iosepa thatʻs permanently berthed at the Polynesian Cultural Centerʻs Hawaiian Village, is also participating as the Polynesian Voyaging Societyʻs education director in the annual Kualoa/Hakipu‘u Canoe Festival on March 7, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the far makai end of Kualoa Regional Park.

From the Ensign Magazine (July 1994): Alton Wade, who was then president of BYU–Hawaii, and had previously served as superintendent at the former Church College of New Zealand and then oversaw hiring of Church Educational System faculty and staff for South Pacific schools, explained, explained President David O. McKayʻs foretelling that “millions” would visit Laie.

In the early 2000s, PCC reclaimed control of its transportation—and its guest experience. After decades of Waikīkī tour operators consolidating ticket sales, dictating schedules, and siphoning retail and dining, President & CEO Alfred Grace and strategist J. Alan Walker led a 2002 reset: no more consolidation, direct sales incentives, and PCC-managed charters and dispatch. Buses arrived earlier, NPS rose, margins improved, and partnerships professionalized (eventually with Roberts Hawai‘i and camera-based quality scoring). The shift remains a strategic victory for PCC.

In 2024, BYU–Hawaii alumnus Mark Ellis became the Polynesian Cultural Center’s first director of voyaging experiences, leading the Iosepa on its first open-ocean journey in eight years. The 57-foot double-hulled canoe joined 26 traditional vessels at FestPAC in Kualoa, then circumnavigated O‘ahu before returning to Lā‘ie. Ellis, inspired as a boy by the Hōkūle‘a’s historic voyages, continues the renaissance of Pacific wayfinding traditions, strengthening Hawaiian identity and honoring ancestral knowledge preserved through generations of navigators.