by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - In support of the initiative to add more hotel rooms on Guam to meet the demands of the island's growing tourism industry, island leaders will be meeting this week with Asia Pacific's premier hotel investment community.

"There's money to be made here from a hotel perspective and we really want to get that word out there," said Guam Visitors Bureau general manager Karl Pangelinan. He said that the Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific 2013 is the place to do it. For over two decades, HICAP has been the "unequaled annual gathering place for Asia Pacific's hotel investment community, attracting the most influential owners, developers, lenders, executives and professional advisors from around the globe."

In fact, a HICAP meeting earlier this year was actually Pangelinan's first trip as GVB's GM following his stint as the Guam Economic Development Authority administrator. "There was no secret that we needed additional hotel rooms and we eyed this conference as a possibility just to get some feelers and make some contacts and network with the different flags and whatnot," he said.

GEDA and GVB along with the Guam International Airport Authority will be attending the conference where Pangelinan will be Guam's designated speaker. He says the goal is to market and position Guam adding part of GVB's 20/20 Tourism Strategic Plan is improving yield and part that involves adding more hotel rooms- but not just any hotel room, but high end ones.

He said, "So this is where we can have a focused effort on attracting the four, four and a half and five star brands to Guam those being your Shangri-La's, Mandarin Orientals, Aman, Four Seasons, and we're happing to say that we have pre-arranged meetings with all of these flags, Pan Pacific is another one and hope to really peak their interest in building and expanding into Guam."

The Guam delegation meanwhile will have an exhibit area to showcase information about Guam one of which is to market property that's been sitting idle for years. "There's only one real piece of attractive government property that we think for the hotels space and that's the one at OKA point which GEDA is putting a package together to sort of put in a catalog of available developments from the government perspective," Pangelinan said.

Pangelinan meanwhile says part of attracting hotel investment on Guam is providing an investor incentive and hopes to work with the Calvo Administration and the Legislature in providing some hybrid or variation of the qualifying certificate program. Ultimately he says the key message is to show Guam is a business friendly environment. HICAP 2013 is set for October 16-18 in Hong Kong.