HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — More than 2,000 travelers from Taiwan so far have booked their travel to Guam through August. The first charter flight of 175 Taiwanese travelers will be arriving Tuesday afternoon, said Guam Visitors Bureau President Carl Gutierrez.
The number quadrupled since Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero announced the lifting of more travel restrictions and after a significant reduction in travel package fees, Gutierrez said.
Travelers with a negative polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test taken within 72 hours of arrival on Guam also may be able to skip the government of Guam quarantine.
Previously, fully vaccinated travelers made up most of those who could skip Guam quarantine.
“This will give our people so much hope that normal life may be coming back sooner than later,” Gutierrez told The Guam Daily Post, about the increased interest from Taiwan travelers to visit Guam, generating “GuaMania” in Taiwan.
Some of the charter flights from Taiwan will be for 22-day tours, Gutierrez said. Others are for five- and seven-day tours.
“The 22-day charters spell long-term stay that quadruples their value, considering four nights for the others,” Gutierrez said.
The passengers of the first charter flight from Taiwan will be staying at five different hotels, Gutierrez said. The Guam Hotel and Restaurant Association has procedures to keep guests and employees safe during a pandemic. These hotels also were able to safely host USS Theodore Roosevelt crew at the height of the pandemic.
The Taiwan charter flights are the first major group tours to Guam since the pandemic brought the island’s tourism to near standstill in March 2020.
Guam is beefing up its tourism reopening, now that some 76% of Guam’s adult population 18 years or older has been fully vaccinated, while Taiwan’s full vaccination rate is less than 9%.
Taiwan travelers have availed themselves of the vaccination and vacation, or Air V&V, program, which includes Covid-19 vaccination on Guam.
Initially, the Air V&V fee, on top of the nightly hotel stay, was $880, but Gutierrez sought a reduction of that cost. The lifting of more travel restrictions further cut the cost to $300 or $400, depending on the passenger’s preference.
GVB is awaiting major arrivals from its largest source markets of South Korea and Japan, where vaccine rollout remains a challenge.
Guam’s tourist arrivals reached a record high of 1.63 million in fiscal year 2019 and was on its way to breaking that record when the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a blow to the visitor industry. Guam had about 750,000 arrivals in fiscal 2020. An earlier projection for fiscal 2021 was 82,600 arrivals but GVB is hoping it will be much higher than that now.
Although GVB is proposing to offer incentives to tourists, including a $500 debit card that each of the first 5,000 tourists can spend at participating Guam businesses, no final decision has been made.
The proposal is meant to help tourism-related businesses, since tourists can spend or use the $500 only on Guam — for taxis, car rentals, restaurants, retail shops, local travel and tours, among other things.
The Recovery Task Force, meanwhile, has been trying to make sure Guam is ready to process travelers smoothly at the airport.
