HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Visitors Bureau’s response immediately after Typhoon Mawar was the subject of discussion during a roundtable with senators on Friday, specifically complaints from visitors who were displaced while waiting for Guam’s airport to reopen and resume commercial flights.
“Those things were cleared up, but I want to know if there’s a future storm or something were to happen, do we have a better response plan?” Sen. Amanda Shelton asked.
Gerry Perez, the vice president of GVB, said there was some negative feedback from visitors on social media immediately after Condition of Readiness 4 was declared.
“There’s a lot of confusion on the part of visitors, a lot of confusion on who needs to do what, when, where and how. But, actually, within a couple of days, a lot of the social media negatives turned positive,” Perez told senators.
Perez referenced a video shared with lawmakers on Thursday during GVB’s budget hearing, which depicted tourists thanking a hotel’s staff for taking care of them during and after the storm. He said that helped improve the preliminary assessments to the island’s response efforts.
“That translated with our marketing message overseas on how we’re taking care of our customers and a lot of the initial negatives, I think, basically switched around into a lot more positive discussion in social media. It’s no accident that it fed into our arrivals numbers,” Perez said.
Nadine Leon Guerrero, director of global marketing for GVB, said a lot had to do with the strong policies hotels have in place for stranded passengers.
“Even though we told the hotels there was some money available, as noted (Thursday), we used very, very little of it – I think less than $20,000 – trying to help those passengers out,” Leon Guerrero said.
According to GVB President and CEO Carl Gutierrez, the majority of the stranded passengers were from Korea.
“Naturally, the head of mission of the Korean consulate office immediately stepped in and reached out to Gerry. … He was bringing firsthand the information about what was happening to the Korean people and from there we helped develop … an easing program to take care of them immediately,” Gutierrez said.
‘Over and beyond’
Gutierrez disputed speculation that hotels were pushing tourists out the door or demanding money.
“The hotels went over and beyond what they would normally do on this particular thing, and it just gave us a good face forward through our source markets,” Gutierrez said.
He asked the Legislature to commend the hotels for stepping up after the storm.
Shelton said she has heard many great stories from hotels about their generosity.
The program that helped lessen the impact on tourists is the Visitor Support Program, according to GVB officials, from which GVB said it expended only $20,000 out of an allotted $1 million.
The remaining balance was repurposed to the Tourism Assistance Program, which has assisted local small businesses in bouncing back from the storm.
The program, which opened June 14, received 537 applications. Qualified businesses received grants of up to $25,000. The program processed 299 checks for $1,973,000.
The program has dedicated $50,000 more to help applicants who initially were denied but are now up for reconsideration.
“We still have … between $2 million and $2.4 million. So, I asked … to add another $50,000 to the $2 million to try to have enough to take care of the smaller ones that are pleading their cases now,” Gutierrez said.
Businesses under the program committed to reopening Saturday, the day after the hearing. GVB said quite a few were back in operation before the deadline.
Tourists play at the beach Sunday, July 16, 2023, in Tumon.
