December best month in arrivals

(Tumon, Guam) The Guam Visitors Bureau (GVB) is proud to announce that Guam welcomed 1.55 million visitors in 2018, the best Calendar Year in the island’s history.

December 2018 finished off the year strong by welcoming 146,104 visitors to our island shores. This represents a 3.7% growth over the previous year, making December 2018 the best month in our islands tourism history by beating the previous record of 145,817 visitors that was set in August 2018.

This growth in arrivals is directly related to the overall increase in available seats to Guam. There were around 982 flights for the month of December 2018 with 197,228 seats available, a 5.68% increase when compared to the 186,634 seats reported in December 2017.

“We congratulate everyone in the tourism industry for pushing through 2018 with fantastic results and welcoming 1.55 million visitors to our island paradise,” said GVB President and CEO Nathan Denight. “We have much to look forward to in this new year as we grow and diversify in our source markets, share our Chamoru culture and work to welcome 1.6 million visitors in 2019.”

The Japan market’s recovery also continues, with Japan arrivals jumping 27.24% in December 2018 when compared to the previous year. Korea arrivals for the month decreased 8.9% due to the reduction in seats with airline carriers such as Korean Air and Jeju Air. However, Year-to-Date arrivals for Korea continues to show strong growth ending the year +9% vs. 2017.

Other markets that showed growth in December include Taiwan by 6.8%, the U.S. by 6.8%, Hong Kong by 17.1%, and the Russia Federation by 25.3%.

The success of the airline incentive program from GVB and the Guam International Airport Authority (GIAA) continues to attract more seats to Guam. In December, United added four more flights a week between Guam and Nagoya. T'way also began its Nagoya-Guam service on December 29 and will run through October 2019. More than 130,000 seats on 700 charter flights are scheduled for Calendar Year 2019.

Media Contact: JOSH TYQUIENGCO - Public Information Officer

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