MVA in the next 40 years

Chris Concepcion

The Marianas Visitors Authority has gone through ups and downs over the last four decades in what its current board chair Marian Aldan Pierce once described as a “roller coaster ride” for them who have been part of the tourism industry since the beginning.

From its creation on Feb. 11, 1976, MVA saw the rise and fall of different tourism markets—beginning in 1977 when 57,000 arrivals were recorded, and reaching a million cumulative visitors in 1988, and now to more than 700,000 in a recent year—as well as the incoming and outgoing of investors in the Commonwealth.

And as MVA celebrates its 40 years this year, it also welcomes a new and young chief to take the lead in this new era of tourism who envisions a balanced and sustainable growth for all in the next 40 years to come.

“We have a good team in place here at the MVA, we have predecessors that are knowledgeable on industry matters, we have a great board of directors who are longtime industry titans in the tourism industry, and we have great staff that are the real heroes in all of this,” MVA managing director Chris Concepcion said, “We will definitely work together to steer the industry in the right direction.”

First on Concepcion’s list is the intense effort to revive and stabilize the Japanese tourism market, which has seen a decline since the 2000s.

Japanese tourism revival, destination enhancement

For the immediate short term, Concepcion said there is a need to revitalize Japan arrivals and then bring them to profitable and stable levels for airlines that fly the route.

“We’re reaching out. We’re in active discussions with different airlines to offer new routes and new service from different points in Japan to CNMI. Nothing confirmed yet but we’re confident that we can move forward on some aspects,” Concepcion said.

In order to entice this market, Concepcion acknowledges the need for further destination enhancement as well, which is another big focus for him.

“With the Japan market, because it is an advanced market, they have been travelling for a long time and they’re very sophisticated travelers, they will spend good money where they see value. With that, another big part of my focus is destination enhancement and we have a good committee right now, volunteers from the community led by MVA board director Chris Nelson and destination enhancement manager Tatiana Babauta who has taken the lead on the side of the MVA,” Concepcion said.

“I think when we start with destination enhancement, if you build things, clean up the islands, make it attractive, and make it worth spending money to see, that builds excitement overseas, and you end up attracting high-yield premium tourists to come and visit us,” he added.

Aside from the ongoing projects such as the relighting of the Beach Road pathway, redesigning of Paseo de Marianas, and the Flower Island Project, Concepcion said he wants to showcase the uniqueness of the CNMI and the islands to have a more defined identity.

Concepcion said his team is working on coming up with “photo op worthy stuff” to become possible landmarks comparable to statues and symbols in other destinations in the world.

One idea is to have exact huge replica of the House of Taga and latte stones in strategic locations.

“The House of Taga…I’m always awed and inspired by it because the latte stone is the symbol of the Chamorro culture and Tinian has the world’s largest standing latte stones,” Concepcion said, “I was thinking of having an actual replica of those latte stones.”

“If you imagine that in the middle of Garapan, tourists would love to stand there and take a photo,” he added.

He added that they are also conceptualizing using island- and nature-themed symbols to become giant statues such as giant coconut crabs and fruit bats where people can take pictures as well.

“Social media, it’s really hot today so if tourists take pictures of that and they blast it out into cyberspace then it becomes free marketing for the CNMI,” Concepcion said.

Concepcion took note of the advantages of having other islands for tourists to visit as well, which would greatly improve if their respective airports begin to have direct international flights.

“That will be the catalyst for boom,” Concepcion said, “I think Tinian and Rota are jewels. They are underrated. They have huge potential. The only problem is airlift. It’s hard to ask tourists to get here and then ask them to jump on a small plane and go to Tinian and Rota.”

Balanced growth, environmental protection, cultural preservation

Despite being in charge of the tourism industry, Concepcion said they are not only looking at growing the industry but balancing and managing it.

“Growth is good but managed growth is key. It’s a huge responsibility for the MVA,” Concepcion said.

While he believes the CNMI can sustain over a million arrivals in a year, a direction that he wants to go in is to have “quality tourists.”

“A very important part of our mission here is to balance out any growth in the tourism industry and tourist arrivals. We do need more tourists of course but with that, we want more quality tourists, high-spending, high-yield tourists who will have great impact on the economy but minimal impact on the environment,” Concepcion said.

“I would rather have one tourist spending $1 million here than one million tourists spending a dollar each because it’s easier on the environment. I am for the protection of the environment and promoting eco-friendly initiatives,” he added.

Concepcion said the fragile state of the environment, particularly the ocean and jungles, is something that must be protected.

“Everybody comes here to see the nature, and the beaches, and enjoy the nice weather and those are the things that we need to protect and promote going forward,” Concepcion said.

He also believes that preserving the islands’ culture is essential, so groups who are promoting cultural performances must be encouraged.

“The idea that the culture defines the destination, that’s very important for me. That’s the only way to distinguish us from other places,” Concepcion said. “The Chamorros and the Carolinians are here in the CNMI and this is their home and so it should stand out differently from other cultures and islands in the Pacific.”

With all the developments that will be coming on line in the CNMI in the next years, Concepcion said there is a need to define sustainable and longterm beneficial growth.

“We all need to come to consensus on what type of development we want for the CNMI because with all the plans that we have coming along here in the next few years, if all these hotel developments really come to fruition, it’s huge. There are going to be thousands of rooms that we need to fill,” Concepcion said.

“Overdevelopment is not good for anybody,” he added.

Leadership, community support

While MVA takes the lead in the CNMI’s only industry, the authority continues to stress that “Tourism is everybody’s business” and that they need the help of everyone to be able to continue promoting the islands as a tropical paradise destination.

MVA said it needs the support of the Commonwealth’s leaders, particularly of the Legislature and the Executive Branch, to make sure that they have the funds to be able to compete with the promotion capabilities of other destinations.

“If you fund MVA, you fund the tourism industry,” Concepcion said, “Along the lines of supporting MVA is we need the support of the leaders on Capital Hill to be able to protect MVA’s primary funding source which is the hotel occupancy tax which we only get 80 percent of.”

“I hope this year there is full support with our budgetary requirements because we need the money. It’s very expensive to market the CNMI overseas,” he added.

Aside from government leaders, MVA also needs the participation of stakeholders and the community as a whole to ensure the continued growth of the islands’ tourism for decades to come.

“It’s a new day; it’s a new era in CNMI tourism. We have a great team, a great board in place. I’d like to ask for the support of the entire community as we move things forward with all this development coming on line here in the CNMI the next few years, we really need everybody on the same page here so that we control and temper any development so that it benefits us and it’s not too much of a burden on our islands, our infrastructure, our environment, our way of life,” Concepcion said.