Cooperation and coordination in tourism

For local leadership in both sectors, there’s the constant soul-searching for good tidings from the Land of the Rising with respect to substantial economic recovery. Japan basically dictates the fate of tourism and investments in the NMI and indeed the entire region.

It is alarming though that despite an honest effort by the Japanese government to encourage its consumers to spend, i.e., dishing out $170 in coupons per family, most are saying it’s a drop in the bucket and isn’t worth taking advantage of it. In short, there’s that stiff reluctance to spend what’s left in the family savings given the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

Coupled with the predicted tense relationship between the US and Japan over the first quarter of the next millennium, it goes to confirm my suspicion that substantial economic recovery would take longer than all the quiet optimism we’ve held in empty hopes for a brighter tomorrow. It’s bleak at best, an anxious uncertainty at worse which doesn’t leave much room for rational planning.

Given this scenario, it seems almost a sin to revisit the recurring query of what does the NMI’s collective leadership (public and private) plan to do between now and until Japan decides to make a difference in global economic recovery? For now, it seems that Little David (the NMI) is crushed whenever Uncle Tom and Uncle Hirohito move about in the tight global economic arena leaving Little David with cuts and bruises all over. And the cuts are rather deep not to mention that neither uncles is wary that Little David is a hemophiliac.

We’re direct involuntary beneficiary of the fatal effects of the Asian crisis. We were hoping that through a partnership with the federal government we would be able to see some form of substantive assistance. But there’s nothing up that alley and not when the US Department of Interior has decided to steal our money for its “favorite constituency”. How ironic that about the only assistance it has seen fit to grant the NMI is the insignificant amount of $40,000 for some coral reef program, in addition to defraying the cost of an economic summit to perpetuate its forte–studies that perpetuate more studies, including studies on other all studies. At a time when our local economy is reeling from the Asian crisis?

I’m not sure what’s the craze of another attempt to raise the federal minimum wage which, under a new proposal would include the NMI. Now, if wages and salaries are supposed to be commensurated with skills, why are we rewarding failure in blind fashion? Is this the appropriate answer to low-skilled people or shouldn’t money for training and education the correct prescription? Then there’s the obvious neglect by proponents of federalization on this issue: the gulf in the different set of economic foundation between the resource-rich USA and a resource-poor and fragile island economy. It’s mind numbing how they’ve chosen to neglect an entirely different set of economic circumstance!

Had Interior taken a constructive and supportive role from the outset of our constitutional government 21 years ago, this senseless controversy would have been fully addressed and resolved under the spirit of true partnership. But it has left the NMI to fend for itself convinced that it isn’t part of fueling the fire of a dysfunctional family. How ironic that while President Clinton speaks openly of his policy on wealth and jobs creation, Interior does the exact opposite–wealth and jobs destruction. Has someone reinvented the “American Dream?” What does the federal government make of this group of US Citizens situated outside the fringe of mainstream America? Why can’t we talk with one another rather than to each other? The onus to rebuilding a true partnership is with the federal government, no more, no less!