Governor Eddie Calvo speaks about Guam’s tourism numbers at a recent ribbon cutting ceremony.
Guam – Guam has passed a historic milestone as 2015 was the best year in Guam tourism history.
The Governors office sent out a release acknowledging that over $1.4 million tourists visited Guam last year, breaking the previous record of $1.3 million set in 1997, this according to the Governors office. The record year comes off the heels of a record month of December when 132,418 visitors came to Guam in December, a 10.5-percent increase from December of last year. But which countries contributed to this record year? Korea arrivals topped out at 427,900, an increase of 38.9-percent. China arrivals also experienced record arrivals of 23,698 visitors, a 45.6-percent rise from calendar year 2014. With the rise of Korean and Chinese travelers to Guam comes the decline of a traditional tourist group as, according to the governors office, Japanese arrivals declined by 4.7-percent because of a weakened Japanese Yen and Japanese travelers choosing to travel domestic. Here’s governor Eddie Calvo on the record breaking 2015 tourism numbers while speaking at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the renovation of 17 public restrooms around the island.
“So you see millions of tourists that are coming to Guam you see this rejuvenation of our parks and facilities. Obviously for this park here and all these other parks here, millions of tourists are going to be visiting not only Ypao but around the island and that’s positive but at the same time and most importantly this is built for us, the people of Guam,” said Calvo.
The Governors Office says that GVB has a strategy on how to boost Japanese arrival numbers.
