During a visit to Taiwan for the 2011 Taipei International Travel Fair (ITF), the Guam delegation, led by Senator Tina Rose Muna Barnes, Guam Visitors Bureau (GVB) Existing Markets Committee (EMC) Chairman, Hayato Yoshino, GVB General Manager Joann Camacho, and GVB Marketing Manager Pilar Laguana, met with top executives from China Airlines (CI), including Johnson Sun, CI Vice President, Taiwan, and Wei-Tuan Chiu, CI Marketing Director, Taiwan, to discuss the future development of the Taiwan-Guam tourism market.

The Taiwan market has shown substantial growth so far in the 2011 calendar year, sending over 40,700 tourists through October 31, an impressive 40.6% increase from last year. Of this, CI expressed that it expects to bring an estimated 32,000 passengers to Guam by year-end 2011, a 12% increase in its passengers.

Both GVB and CI representatives expressed interest in promoting Guam tourism in Taiwan, not only through general tourism but more specifically in themed travel packages. In order to diversify Guam as a tourism destination, and given Guam’s many different characteristics and offerings, GVB and CI will work together to provide tourists with a unique travel experience through the themes of sports, weddings, and English education tourism.

One of the discussion topics was CI’s flight schedule, which currently operates twice a week between Taipei and Guam on Tuesdays and Saturdays, leaving late and arriving before dawn. GVB, based on continual consumer feedback, has been actively working to attain better flight times for its Taiwan customers, as well as increase weekly flights to Guam. CI has agreed to work together towards increasing from two to four flights per week, as well as attaining daytime flights.