By Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno
HAGATNA, Guam (Pacific Daily News, Aug. 1) - Consider these
snapshots: Population, about 130,000; visitor arrivals, more than two million a
year; tourism marketing budget, about $3 million a year.
Sounds like what Guam could be in some distant future?
No, but Guam can learn some lessons from destination Cairns,
four flight hours from Guam.
The tropical Australian city, like Guam, values Japan as its
single largest source of tourists.
The difference is the extent of the two destinations' stakes in
the Japan visitor market.
Guam has, for years, relied on now economically weakened Japan
as the source of about 80 percent of tourists who visit the island. Guam saw
786,947 Japanese tourists last year, or 76 percent of the island's total visitor
arrivals.
Cairns' Japanese visitors make up about 30 percent of all
foreign tourists who visit the tropical city,...