HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — It may take three years for Guam’s visitor arrivals to reach the pre-pandemic peak of 1.7 million per year, but the Guam Visitors Bureau is working hard to get there, according to the board’s chair.
Chair George Chiu, during a board meeting Thursday, said pre-pandemic numbers signify where the island’s bread-and-butter tourism needs to be, adding that the gap is closing.
“We’ve been working really hard, but at the end of the day we need to get back. We keep talking about pre-pandemic as our level. … On the bright side of all of this thing we’ve closed the gap a little bit between July and August already, but overall the Japanese outbound market is about 43% of the pre-pandemic level. What’s our share? We’re at 16% of that 43%. Hawaii’s at 32%, the United States is at 36%. That’s just reality. That’s why I keep pushing for Haneda,” Chiu said.
GVB had hoped a new United Airlines route from Haneda, Japan, would help Guam get there, but that prospect fell through as the U.S. Department of Transportation instead allocated slots for Hawaiian Air.
That blow prompted the chair to call for the board to “support the airlines that support us,” as he noted the importance of understanding the competition and competitors.
“USA is a huge competitor of our airlines that fly here and they’re flying Airbus 380s to Hawaii. We need to take that into consideration,” Chiu said.
Tourism recovery for the island has been impacted by several factors, the pandemic and Typhoon Mawar among them.
“We can’t blame everything on the typhoon. We are recovering nicely from the typhoon. Guam was at 12% of the outbound market. Hawaii was 26%, USA was 29%, so you can see improvement. Guam went up from 12% to 16%, so there’s improvement. But we are still lagging … behind a little bit and we need to figure out how better we can do on our marketing,” Chiu said.
GVB has put in a lot of flyer miles to market Guam, but Chiu emphasized the need to turn more toward nontraditional marketing avenues such as social media and influencers as he said Guam is lagging behind Hawaii.
“So, we are lagging behind Hawaii. I don’t know the reason why, we shouldn’t be. So Hawaii right now is our benchmark. I don’t even try to benchmark Okinawa because we are so far behind Okinawa right now. Hawaii is the benchmark for me for now, but we did narrow the gap between July and August … which is an improvement,” Chiu said.
While GVB anticipates 800,000 to 1 million tourists for fiscal year 2024, Chiu said “we’re still behind.”
The forecast right now is 1.6 million seats coming into Guam for the fiscal year, that equates to 71% of pre-pandemic arrival numbers. That’s roughly 30% below the pre-pandemic peak.
“Pre-pandemic is really a good number for us, not any other country, because pre-pandemic we had almost 1.7 million tourists, that was our peak. Other destinations’ pre-pandemic numbers may not be the peak, but for Guam that was the peak, that’s why I keep referring to pre-pandemic,” Chiu said.
While reaching the 2019 numbers is the target, not reaching the goal isn’t a reflection that GVB isn’t giving its best, he said.
“If we don’t reach that number, it’s not a reflection that GVB is not doing their job, it’s something that we need to remind ourselves that this is where we want to be at, so that we can see that number every day,” Chiu said. “If we can reach it in three years, I would be ecstatic. It’s not going to be next year, it’s not going to be the year after.”
According to GVB Vice President Gerry Perez, there are several factors at play in both the Japan and Korea markets.
“International departure from Japan is 60% pre-COVID and their airline seats pre-COVID-19 is 80%. What’s happening now is there’s a real imbalance between inbound into Japan and outbound. The travel agents actually are pushing outbound travel, but at the end of the day, they make more money with inbound than outbound,” Perez said.
Another factor that will impact the Japan market is an upcoming increase in fees to travel to Guam.
“(Japan Airlines) just issued a notice that all tickets to Guam sold Dec. 1 to the 31st, coming up is going to include an additional 35,000 yen for fuel surcharge, so that’s not going to help us a lot,” Perez said.
As for the Korea market, although flights have expanded for October to March, bringing a 12% increase, come March 2024, a suspension could decrease the market.
“They are contemplating a suspension of night flights to Guam starting in March to October. The Korean airline organization, however, is going through a modernization program and they are just taking delivery on some A21 Neos, these are the newer single aircraft,” Chiu said.
While the Korean market is projected to reach 60% for Guam, the decrease in the strength of the Japanese yen also has contributed to a loss in tourist arrivals, as GVB noted more Korean tourists are opting to travel to Japan.
A traffic direction sign in front of the A.B. Won Pat International Airport is seen Monday, Sept. 25, 2023, in Tiyan.
