To open our tourism trade, we should appeal to vacationers

The Guam Visitor Bureau and industry partners have been working on programs to attract tourists to the island.

There are two short-term campaigns designed to help boost travel and tourism after a year-long shutdown in the industry.

The Air V&V campaign hopes to attract local tourists and expats to the island for their vaccinations. The “Hafa adai, Hafa Price” campaign wants to use funds from the American rescue plan to subsidize tourist spending on the island and create incentives for foreign travel agencies and possibly airlines.

Both campaigns have their value and the potential to produce powerful results. The Air V&V campaign has started. The Hafa campaign still needs support.

If the Biden administration recognizes that much of the US bailout fund’s funds should be used to restart the tourism and hospitality industries of states and territories, it should be a no-brainer. In its ARP guidelines, the administration recognized that tourism and the hospitality industry are hardest hit.

There is local discussion of a job incentive program where the local government pays part of an employee’s salary to get people into jobs on short notice. The fear is that if federal unemployment ends in September, thousands of people will be unemployed. This is not a bad idea.

However, jobs must be available for these employees. If we don’t get the tourism industry up and running, we won’t have jobs for potential employees.

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The tourist incentives are important. This is not a top priority issue. What should come first is boosting the tourism industry. Give the industry some lead time and then start the job program.

The tourist incentive campaigns have an accountability component. It’s easy to get data on how the various incentives are used in these campaigns.

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What we really need is speed-to-market.

The longer we take to make these decisions, the longer it will take to get these programs off the ground. In the meantime, we have the potential to lose market share to other destinations.

We must also remember that there are companies in this industry that depend on their economic life. Support the industry’s incentives and let’s move forward.