Marianas Visitors Authority Managing Director Christopher Concepcion, center, with MVA Marketing Manager Thomas Kim, left standing, MVA Deputy Managing Director Judy C. Torres, right, and MVA acting Chair Gloria Cavanagh, left, back to the camera.
MARIANAS Visitors Authority Managing Director Christopher Concepcion said MVA must receive its share of the hotel and occupancy tax in fiscal year 2024 to “maintain and sustain tourism momentum.”
“We see momentum — arrivals are increasing every month. We need to maintain and sustain that, but if the Legislature cuts MVA’s budget then I don’t know how we will function,” Concepcion said after an MVA board meeting on Wednesday.
“In order for the economy to recover you need to fund MVA — we bring arrivals in…we market ourselves in Korea and Japan, and really in the world,” he said. “We inform travelers that we are here, open for business, come and visit us. If we have a guaranteed source of funding the arrivals will continue to climb because we would be able to market ourselves properly…and from there everybody will feel the benefits of a strong tourism economy.”
Businesses benefit directly from visitor arrivals, Concepcion added.
“These visitors spend money in restaurants, hotels, shopping centers, gas stations, rent-a-car shops — everybody is going to feel the benefit in the increase of tourist arrivals,” he said.
“We need the Legislature’s support — we need [people to] understand…that funding us is funding essentially everybody else.”
MVA does not have a guaranteed source of funding except for the hotel and occupancy tax collections, Concepcion said.
According to acting MVA Board Chair Gloria Cavanagh, the hotel and occupancy tax collections earmarked for MVA were suspended by the previous Legislature due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions when there were no incoming tourists.
On Wednesday, the MVA board approved a $12.52 million budget for FY 2024 that included about $5 million in projected hotel and occupancy tax collections.
For FY 2023, MVA’s budget amounted to $821,745.
Cavanagh said MVA’s proposed FY 2024 budget is for operations, marketing and events.
Noting the CNMI government’s other financial obligations, she said, “We know that $12 million is impossible to get. [But] we asked ourselves what it would take to bring back the tourism industry so of course we need to revive our signature events and our marketing, and develop programs.”
She added, “We just want our earmark back, the hotel and occupancy tax, and from there we would manage it and try to prioritize where we can spend the earmark. We can’t bring back everything…but we will be able to bring back some that will hopefully increase and sustain incoming arrivals.”
