{"id":407382,"date":"2024-03-07T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=407382"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Small-businesses-still-struggling-to-keep-hope-afloat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Small-businesses-still-struggling-to-keep-hope-afloat\/","title":{"rendered":"Small businesses still struggling to keep hope afloat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the three cruise ships that recently visited Saipan were a good thing as they brought several hundred tourists to the CNMI and Garapan businesses saw some good improvement, the overall picture shows that the impact is still small.<\/p>\n

This was the gist of the comments of Saipan Chamber of Commerce board of directors president Joseph C. Guerrero in a conversation just after the Chamber\u2019s general membership meeting yesterday in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it has had some impact, but the relative impact I think is small,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that, unless the CNMI receives cruise ships every day, the impact is very small and it\u2019s only for specific types of businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ships, we welcome them, but\u2026for example, the [passengers] get off the ship at 9am or 10am, and then they have to go back, make their way to the ship at 5pm,\u201d so they\u2019re only on the island for a short period.<\/p>\n

Also, he said, only the restaurants that are open for lunch are the only ones that benefit from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, my business, we\u2019re not open at lunch yet, so we don\u2019t receive any of that benefit. And there\u2019s other businesses in Garapan that don\u2019t open for lunch, but only dinner. We welcome them, but the impact is very little,\u201d he added. Guerrero operates the Naked Fish Bar and Grill restaurant.<\/p>\n

Although appreciative of the hard work of the Marianas Visitors Authority, Guerrero said that in the overall picture small business are still struggling. When notified of a recent news piece from another media outlet featuring small business owners who shared their fears, and concerns, Guerrero, who is a business owner himself, agreed. \u201cThe small businesses, we\u2019re all struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concedes that many businesses lost money during the COVID-19 pandemic, but now with the pandemic already over, they still feel its remaining effects on the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, it still feels like we\u2019re in a pandemic. \u2026I mean, don\u2019t get me wrong. We feel safe here. Many of us are no longer afraid of the virus. Most people are not worried about their health status in relation to COVID-19, but our businesses are sick, you know. They are not healthy. When you\u2019re barely making payroll, that\u2019s not a healthy business, right?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Right now, Guerrero said many small businesses are just doing enough to keep their businesses afloat. \u201cAnd that\u2019s not a healthy business environment when all you do is just making sure the bills are paid and not have anything extra to expand or grow your business or buy new furniture or make other improvements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hopeful that tourism is going to pick up slowly. It was nice to hear the Hong Kong Airlines plans to fly here, but then again, Asiana pulled out, right? And so they\u2019re just trying to fill, I think, a void. And so, yeah, we\u2019re still, we\u2019re hopeful, but very cautious in the business community. \u201c<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Joseph C. Guerrero gives his remarks during the Chamber\u2019s general membership meeting yesterday at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan in San Antonio.<\/p>\n

-CHRYSTAL MARINO
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Although the three cruise ships that recently visited Saipan were a good thing as they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}