HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Visitors Bureau has signed a memorandum of understanding with VISA Korea and Mongolia of VISA International Asia Pacific Korea Ltd., a partnership that GVB President and CEO Carl Gutierrez said represents a great opportunity for the island.
“They have a broad reach, VISA itself, they can do all kinds of different things within the country that they’re at … for them to be able to push a lot of travelers just through their system to Guam,” Gutierrez told The Guam Daily Post Wednesday during the GVB General Membership Meeting at the the RIHGA Royal Laguna Resort, where the MOU signing ceremony took place.
Korea is the focus of the MOU. At this time, the country is the number one contributor to visitors on Guam, according to Gutierrez.
“We want to get (VISA) into what we did with the Japan group, where they have JCB (Co. Ltd.) instead of VISA. And so, all those travelers coming here, we give them moneys, for example, $30 for each passenger as a promotion,” Gutierrez said.
He added that GVB is reaching out to hotels, restaurants and others in the community to see who will want to participate in a promotion program with VISA.
“We want to promote it. But we’re going to use the network of VISA to be able to try to get visibility more for Guam, through their network,” Gutierrez said.
“We’re working right now in what kind of incentives we want to provide to sort of get them excited to come to Guam, like we did with Japan … We gave (GVB Korea) $100,000 for April, $100,000 for June to promote on the slower months, to give them like $30 for each passenger. A family of five, that’s $150 … So they come here, and with that promotion, they would be the ones that would accept, put your $150 in your phone or whatever it is … When we give you $150, you must use it in Guam … All we do is provide funds for the incentive. But (VISA) would promote,” Gutierrez added.
He said GVB is trying to do something similar with Taiwan.
Photo by David Castro/The Guam Daily Post
