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Yumul: MVA didn’t mind decreased budget
With revenues from the hotel tax hitting an all-time high, coupled with dearth of available hotel rooms, the Marianas Visitors Authority didn’t mind a cut in its budget for fiscal year 2015.
House Tourism Committee chair Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan) said the $10.1 million MVA collected on hotel occupancy tax as of July 2014 will soften the decrease from $2.6 million to just $1 in the 2015 earmarks for MVA.
“During the budget discussion before we passed it, I sat down with [MVA managing director] Perry Tenorio and discussed the $1.16 million that was taken away for the hiring of teachers and whether they agreed with it or not. At the day end of the day, they said they didn’t mind,” said Yumul.
He, however, hopes that diverting the $1.16 million to fund 42 new positions at the Public School System would be a one-time deal.
“We made sure to keep a dollar in the [bank] account so it wouldn’t be zeroed out so for next year if PSS doesn’t need it, we can give a portion of the operational funds back to MVA.”
Yumul is also keeping his fingers crossed that the all-time high on hotel occupancy tax collections is only the start of something big for MVA and the islands’ rebounding tourism industry.
“There’s been a big increase in hotel tax collections. Assuming that everything remains constant, we don’t have any disasters and the arrival numbers remain the same, MVA stands to get $10 million in hotel tax [annually].”
He added that diverting $1.16 million from MVA to PSS is the right thing to do at the moment because the CNMI currently has a problem accommodating a high volume of tourists because of the lack of available rooms.
“We’ve been turning away tourists because we don’t have the rooms. At this point in time, with no additional rooms opening, we can’t really promote. We get to choose where to promote, to whether it’s high-end tourist rather than just opening it up to everyone. We can’t really afford opening it to everyone because of the lack of rooms.”
Yumul said the CNMI should continue to promote to its key markets like Japan, China, Korea, and Russia, but ultimately should expand to Taiwan and Hong Kong markets after more hotel rooms are built.
