Adriano defends proposal to establish separate MVA offices for Rota, Tinian

The proposed creation of separate offices of the Marianas Visitors Authority for Rota and Tinian will not cut into the budget of the tourism agency, contrary to what its board has expressed to the Legislature.

Sen. Joaquin G. Adriano has insisted that promotion and marketing efforts would remain a joint undertaking of the three islands under the MVA’s guidance.

“MVA has been misled by the House that we are taking away their budget. The budget remains with the MVA,” he told in an interview.

The Senate reduced the agency’s budget for FY 2001 by over a million dollars from $6 million proposed by the House to $4.9 million.

Some of the funds were shifted to establish the Rota and Tinian offices, each of which would get close to $500,000 if approved by the lower house and the governor.

But Mr. Adriano, who had pressed the separate appropriation, maintained this is just to ensure fair distribution of the cash resources to promote the two islands as well as Saipan in markets abroad.

Two new positions — deputy managing director for each of the island municipality — have been proposed to be funded under the Senate’s version of the spending measure.

They will be reporting directly to the MVA managing director who is based on Saipan to coordinate all the marketing campaign of the two islands, said Mr. Adriano.

“There will have three deputy directors of MVA but still, the managing director call the shots,” he explained.
Responding to statement by MVA officials that the move could affect present campaign programs in Japan and other markets, the senator assured there will still be combined efforts to aggressively promote the Northern Marianas.

“I don’t see how this system will jeopardize their promotion when there’s going to be joint effort by all the islands because the deputy director and the managing director will work together,” said Mr. Adriano.

Some lawmakers, however, have aired concerns that such a proposal could undermine further the effectiveness of current promotion and thus harm efforts to attract more tourists into the CNMI.

MVA officials are hoping the Legislature will reinstate their initial budget allocation, although they have stressed this is still not enough in view of more promotional dollars being pumped by competitors such as Hawaii and Guam.