by Krystal Paco

Guam - For the last 45 years, Guam has been marketed as a close and affordable destination. But as 2013 marks the Guam Visitors Bureau's 50th anniversary of tourism and planning ahead, they're looking to switch gears.

Last year, GVB reported a record-breaking $1.3 million visitors. Come the year 2020, they're targeting 2 million - a reasonable goal according to board chairman Mark Baldyga as he unveiled the Tumon 2020 Plan, complete with a beach boardwalk, sidewalk tiki torches, a pedestrian crosswalk, and visitor safety officers who he envisions wear friendly Hafa Adai polo shirts while riding Segways to issue citations to violators and give directions to tourists.

Currently, he reports there are up to four Guam Police Department officers patrolling the area when he says Pleasure Island really needs 14. "Some of what we need we don't need a GPD officer necessarily for, we're talking about beach fires cars parked on the beach and pop-up tents and signage and handbilling, and all the things that a competent professionally trained security officer could take care of," Baldyga explained.

Aside from amping-up security, Guam won't see increased visitor arrivals without adding additional hotel rooms first. "We have 8,000 rooms now the Dusitani will add 400, so that's 8,400 - 8,400 tourists rooms to reach our target goals we need 10,000 that's 1,600 additional rooms over 7 years. I believe we can do it," he said.

Baldyga emphasizes the importance of differentiating Guam from all other sun and sand destinations, pushing Chamorro culture and local attractions including world class SCUBA diving, sky diving, deep sea fishing, and golf. "It's funny I'm in the attractions business I hear people say all the time Guam doesn't have enough to do there aren't enough attractions. I can tell you now if you open up the JTB book for Hawaii and the JTB book for Guam and put them side by side - we have 40% more attractions than Hawaii does," he said.

When there's enough rooms and enough to do, the end result is longer visitor arrivals. "If you take a 3.5 night average stay and extend it to 4.5 nights, that's a 28% increase in on island spending without increased demand on infrastructure and airlift," Baldyga said.

The Tumon 2020 Plan will be finalized in two months.