HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Not only is Guam back in the business of welcoming guests to the island, it had “been in business” as early as three weeks after the passage of Typhoon Mawar, as utilities were restored and debris cleared from roadways and parks, according Guam Visitors Bureau President and CEO Carl Gutierrez.
The head of the island’s tourism agency appeared before lawmakers Thursday, along with other GVB officials, to speak on the bureau’s fiscal year 2024 budget request. Gutierrez and others expounded on Guam’s tourism recovery from the typhoon, while relaying some challenges ahead.
Mawar left widespread destruction all over the island in late May, having split apart trees, downed power lines and torn the roofs from houses. Gutierrez said the typhoon disrupted the island’s momentum in recovering visitor arrivals from before the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting the 70% recovery trajectory forecast for fiscal 2024.
But just four weeks after Mawar, June ended with 17,310 visitors, Gutierrez said. This reflected an improving recovery mix of 17% Korean, 14% Japanese, 5% Taiwan and 5% Philippine visitors, he added. However, almost 40% of June visitors were from the U.S., most of whom were personnel from agencies involved in disaster recovery or military-related employees.
GVB is expecting that July will record more than double the arrivals in June, with a run rate of 38,533 visitors expected, based on 8,701 arrivals from the first seven days of the month.
“Timely actions taken to recover from Mawar are bearing fruit,” Gutierrez said, adding that this was thanks to the flexibility and authority awarded to him in the current budget law as the general manager of the agency.
“The ability to repurpose funding quickly and to direct it to targeted objectives was instrumental in getting us to where we are today,” he said.
Arrivals to Guam typically begin to pick up this time of year and peak around August, before dropping around October, to then pick up again in the winter months.
More than 43,000 visitors arrived on Guam in May, a little more than GVB’s run rate for July, which would normally see even more visitors than May or June, based on arrival trends before the pandemic.
While July still is expected to bring significant recovery from the typhoon in terms of visitor numbers, Gary Hiles, chief economist at the Guam Department of Labor, said earlier this month that it’s too soon to tell what the full impact of Mawar will be on the local economy, with it largely depending on how quickly the number of visitors to Guam can rebound.
Budget request
GVB is seeking a budget of $27 million for fiscal 2024, or $8 million more than appropriated this fiscal year. Gutierrez said 50% of the fiscal 2024 request is allocated to marketing and research activities, 27% is allocated to destination development, and 23% to administrative and personnel expenses.
“The combined priority of which is to sustain the immediate strategic goals of capturing peak season business in July, August and September; restoring the trajectory of pre-COVID arrivals; and facilitating the restoration of tourism-related businesses that provide an authentic island destination experience. This third point is especially important because many businesses cannot wait weeks or months for other financial resources to survive,” Gutierrez said Thursday.
“Our strategy in pursuing these strategic goals entail a messaging campaign using GVB-owned channels to communicate with trade consumers and mass media, and providing the latest updates on recovery with the ending tag line that ‘We are open for businesses,'” Gutierrez added.
Sen. Telo Taitague noted that GVB’s budget request included $6 million more in contractual services. Gutierrez said that increase relates to marketing efforts for Guam, which need to be propped up in order to be competitive with other destinations that are “killing us” in terms of marketing strategies and expenditures.
GVB Vice President Gerry Perez added that the contractual services category is, for the most part, driven by the GVB destination improvement team.
“There’s been long years of neglect in revitalizing our cultural assets and improving our physical assets,” Perez said. “We’re devoting a lot of investment in that, 27% I think is what we’re asking for this fiscal year, basically to fix the parks, do a lot of things that really we shouldn’t be doing, but for a lack of results, had to jump in and get it done and give credibility to the marketing message that we give.”
Sen. Amanda Shelton, who leads the legislative committee overseeing GVB, drew attention to a slight decrease in marketing efforts for Taiwan, noting that Taiwan appeared to be a promising market for Guam some years ago.
Perez said that was due to a couple of reasons, including issues with airlines. GVB is trying to convince one airline to extend the number of chartered flights to Guam, while a couple more airlines are facing equipment and manpower shortages, according to Perez.
“In terms of spending money for that market, I think it’s more like a maintenance issue right now than a driving issue to generate business,” Perez said, adding later that there’s nothing to stop GVB from rebalancing its budget should an opportunity present itself for the Taiwan market.
Carl Gutierrez
Gerry Perez
