Hire Mabel


A bit of hope is on the horizon that tourism in the CNMI might have a chance now that Chris Concepcion has resigned from the Marianas Visitors Authority and the CNMI government can search for a competent replacement. Even the governor could not hold back his excitement about the change.

“His leadership has influenced the direction of MV A and the tourism industry, and we hope he finds success in his next chapter,” Arnold Palacios wrote in his reaction to Mr. Concepcion’s resignation, clearly assigning the blame for the government’s failure to attract tourists on the outgoing general manager. “This creates both uncertainty as well as opportunities for new leadership to address these issues and bring new ideas or approaches that could benefit the tourism landscape.”

That is perhaps the nicest way I have ever heard someone say that another person sucked at his job.

MVA should hire Kandit’s very own Mabel Doge Luhan, who has been providing solutions to the problems MVA and the government have been ignoring in favor of world-class travel and all those other perks.

But if you’ve really been paying attention to Ms. Luhan’s falconry-inspired diatribes haranguing MVA for its piss poor performance, you’d suspect that our girl Mabel would pass up such an offer in favor of what she has been advocating from the jump: the complete overhaul of how the CNMI government markets Saipan, Tinian, and Rota to travelers from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China.

Why, Ms. Luhan has pressed over and over, is the government spending millions on MVA personnel, off island consultants and questionable marketing firms, travel, so-called trade shows, and airline subsidies? The government, Ms. Luhan has pointed out, should be investing just a sliver of what MVA spends annually on marketing people and programs that will work in this modern, post-pandemic world. From the hiring of reputable marketing firms in Korea and Japan to paying major influencers to investing in simple changes to landscape and regulation in Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, Mr. Palacios and the legislature can turn this basketcase tourism economy around.

Mr. Concepcion’s departure from MVA is a good start, but that’s all it is. His inability to market the Northern Marianas while sticking the bill for his several vacations to the CNMI taxpayers is a shared experience. The MVA board allowed it all.

That board, parts of its membership highly conflicted with financial allegiance to the very companies that benefit from MVA’s corporate welfare, is as much of a problem if not a bigger one than Mr. Concepcion’s lackluster executive leadership and poor decisions at the expense of the taxpayers.

Mr. Concepcion’s resignation provides the Commonwealth Legislature the opportunity to really shake things up. Just like the Commonwealth Casino Commission, the legislature needs to abolish MVA and empower the governor with a smaller budget than MVA was getting and the authority to do what it takes to market the CNMI to the source markets. If empowered, the governor should hire one tourism coordinator in his office to interface and contract with reputable marketing firms in the source markets. That coordinator – a special assistant-level person – should have the authority to direct government agencies and resources to spruce up the tourist sites, crack down on poacher taxi services, and to promote AirBnBs and other lower-cost accommodations to visitors.

The CNMI should be marketed to target audiences as a beautiful American paradise for vacation gay weddings complete with legalized cannabis use, along with the other traditional marketing campaigns. The coordinator can work with the newly-upgraded Northern Marianas College to promote education tourism. And, of course – and in case MVA hasn’t already thought of this – Saipan, Tinian, and especially Rota should be marketed to the thousands of military servicemen and women stationed in Guam.

The only thing proven by the numbers to be standing in the way of tourism and economic development in the CNMI is MVA. It’s gotta go. And the governor should hire Mabel, or at least someone who thinks like her.

 


2 Comments

  • Troy, I would agree with some of your observations, but certainly not all of them. Same thing goes for Mabel when it pertains to some of her past MVA diatribes that I have tried to read through. I think that while both of you are good at stating the obvious, you are also guilty of recycling the often repeated archaic solutions instead of coming up with any new ideas (maybe both of you are suffering from a case of MVA syndrome?). The basic rule I’m sure everyone knows is that you can’t sell something if no one wants it or has no need for it, even if you discount or subsidize it (maybe that should be the first clue?). I can with certainty say that the CNMI probably missed more than a few opportunities in the past to attract new visitors and I could detail the specifics based on some of the research I casually looked into (might still be feasible). The problem with me posting any “suggestions” in a public comment forum is that Guam is a competitor, so I’m sure any insights or ideas would probably get poached by interested parties on Guam to the detriment of the CNMI. Which ponders the question, why does Troy care what happens in the CNMI relative to the tourism situation? Makes me wonder too about Mabel? Certainly if someone is qualified to sell the CNMI as a destination, you would certainly think that they would know how to sell themselves for a position in the MVA without anyones help? Overall, if the CNMI is going to survive as a destination, it will probably be necessary for it to reinvent itself. Unfortunately that takes time and money, and the CNMI doesn’t have the luxury of either. I hate to point out the obvious, but it appears that the CNMI has now entered an “economic doom loop”, and it is only going to get worse as time progresses. One of the more prominent commenters posting on the MV website has repeatedly summed up the tourism problem when he mentions how the CNMI’s tourism reputation has been soiled over the years (especially in this digital age). A bad reputation and negative first impressions are hefty handicaps if you are a tourist destination and are not easily turned around regardless if you clean up the public restrooms, remove junk cars, get rid of poker parlors, etc. Further, I seriously doubt if Mabel is the answer, nor is cannabis, nor is the U.S. dollar exchange rate, nor cheaper hotel rooms, nor on and on and on. Good luck regardless, it’s not like certain people over the years haven’t warned that this day might come. All eggs in one basket metaphor anyone?

    • papalatung

        01/23/2025 at 6:00 PM

      “Economic doom loop” is music to our ears, because we profit from our people’s misery.

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