‘MVA’s share of hotel tax owed since Dec.’

Christopher Concepcion is concerned that the Marianas Visitors Authority has not been receiving its share of the CNMI’s hotel occupancy tax since last December.

Concepcion, the MVA’s managing director, reported to the MVA board in a meeting yesterday that the agency is short by $2.5 million, which the Department of Finance actually owes MVA in hotel occupancy tax.

The last allotment the MVA received was in November, he said. Even then, it was just a partial amount.

“So we are very concerned,” he said. “We are in communication daily with the Department of Finance on this.”

He said a lot of changes are happening at Finance right now, with “a new guy in charge,” referring to acting Finance Secretary David Atalig.

Concepcion said they have been in contact with Finance and that they are fully aware that what MVA does is critical to the entire CNMI economy.

He said his team is pushing on Finance’s side to prioritize the MVA’s allotment. For now, MVA is going to be fine, but Concepcion said this “cannot stay much longer” if there no allotment.

Right now, the MVA is trying to make budget cuts, he said, and he is going to propose that to the board.

In the meantime, Concepcion promised to call the acting Finance secretary, while MVA chief accountant Joanne Paraiso will call Finance’s treasurer—a one-two approach that he hopes will work.

In a separate interview, Concepcion said the last payment they got from Finance was last November and that they received nothing for December, January, and February.

He said the November payment was not even full as it was only partial.

The MVA’s average share of the hotel occupancy tax is $1.1 million a month.

Concepcion acknowledged that there were no flights last November because of Super Typhoon Yutu’s devastation but the tourism industry has been slowly recovering, that tourists are paying the tax and the hotels are collecting and giving it to Finance.

“Once it gets to Finance, where does it go?” he asked.

The immediate impact on MVA, he said, is that they’re delaying payments to vendors.

“This is our budget. The only budget we get is hotel occupancy tax. We are entitled 80 percent of it,” Concepcion said.

He said if they don’t get the 80 percent, MVA does not have anything.

Concepcion said the allotment is critically important to pay their representatives offshore—the Japan, China, and Korea markets.

“If they are not out there advertising us, then the market forgets us,” he said.

Concepcion said they are concerned about losing the CNMI’s presence in the market overseas if they do not maintain an active, aggressive marketing campaign.

“It is so highly competitive out there,” he pointed out.