Guam is expected to be one of the top destinations for 150,000 outbound travelers from Japan between the end of December and early January.
Members of the Guam Visitors Bureau gathered for their quarterly meeting Friday morning at the Hilton Guam Resort & Spa Micronesian Ballroom.
GVB CEO and President Carl Gutierrez started the meeting by saying that since the bureau last met in September, he had been working to promote Guam in Japan to travelers all over the country.
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After Gutierrez’s initial address, GVB Vice President Gerry Perez revealed the bureau’s anticipated number of visitors from Japan to start the new fiscal year.
“We have actually have some good news, (the Japan Travel Bureau) is estimating about 150,000 travelers for the Dec. 23 to Jan. 3 period. This is about 7-1/2 times last year’s outbound travel,” Perez said, before adding Guam is one of Japan’s top travel destinations at the moment.
Perez also explained, however, some obstacles, including the yen’s exchange rate to the dollar being weak and increasing fuel costs.
“There’s an issue which is going to create, like, a 20% increase in travel expenses overseas, according to JTB,” said Perez.
The longtime tourism official went on to explain what GVB will be doing for the rest of the fiscal year to support a rebound of Guam’s top industry.
“For the second quarter, we will continue our social media brand marketing program and particularly targeting the ‘love to travel’ market. There’s a large group of 20-to-34-year-old customers in Japan who identified themselves as loving to travel, so we’re going to be focused on that,” GVB’s vice president said.
The number of flights between Japan and Guam was also a topic of discussion, where Perez said Japan Airlines intends to join United Airlines in adding flights between late December and early March.
Korea
Earlier this week, GVB announced partnerships with two Korean universities for the purpose of promoting medical and education tourism.
In line with that, Perez said there will be upward of 40,000 seats coming from Korea to Guam in the next few months.
“For December, we will have a total 44,000 seats, … and for January we’ll have about (45,000) to 46,000 seats, … and then it tapers off to about 40,000 in February,” Perez said.
The expected arrivals show a rise not only in visitors from Korea, but also a rise of visitors in total.
“For the month of November we have (33,000), close to 34,000 arrivals through (Nov. 26). We expect this to be close to (35,000) to 40,000 by the end of the month,” Perez said at the membership meeting.
In GVB’s monthly arrivals summaries from September and October, South Koreans have been 64% and 71%, respectively, of all visitors. The September summary shows 18,065 people visited, with 22,716 in October.
