Guam's often referred to as a mini-version of Hawaii when it comes to the tourism industry. The Aloha State is going through the same drastic plunge in visitor arrivals and revenue as we are, but now plans to reopen on August 1. KUAM News spoke with a pair of top leaders about their recovery plan.

Hawaii State Sen. Glenn Wakai chairs the economic development, tourism and technology committee, while Keith Regan is the chief administrative officer for the Hawaii Tourism Authority. They say Hawaii's $18 billion tourism industry is down to almost nothing, and so are under heavy pressure to reopen by next month. Officials believe the key to recovery is ensuring the islands are safe.

"This is a huge gap that we're trying to fill and it's a critical gap that we need to fill," Wakai said. "But we need to do it safely, and that is obviously is the biggest push for us and the biggest concern is making sure that our hotels, our airlines, our retail, our merchants. Anyone that's involved in this industry has the protocols in place to keep not only our visitors and residents who are returning safe but also those who are working in the industry as well."

Keith Regan, chief administrative officer of the Hawaii Tourism Authority also chimed in.

"We, as you folks there in Guam, want to make sure we do it the right way," he said. "And the only way we can do that is if we're all aware of these safety protocols and marching toward that direction."

Wakai says 72-hour pre-testing of all arrivals is a must for visitors and returning residents. And it's the HTA's job to get the message out Regan said.

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"You need to get this type of test, you need to get it within 72 hours in order to get on the plane and even come to Hawaii because otherwise you're gonna be stuck in a hotel," he said. "I mean that's the reality of it and we need to make sure all our branding messages reiterate that and reinforce that so that when people are deciding to book their trips to Hawaii from some of our major markets they understand, this is what I need to do in order to go to Hawaii and have a great experience."

In the meantime, Hawaii has been working with key source markets on what Wakai calls bubble relationships, between two places with low infection rates. The problem is: the U.S. mainland has the highest infection rates in the world.

"So we're trying to pursue these kind of MOUs with various countries, but as Keith was mentioning sometimes our isolation is to our advantage and sometimes it's to our disadvantage," he said. "So in this particular case, because we're not part of the contiguous U.S. We're trying to use it to our advantage and say, hey Japan, we're part of America, but we're not really part of America so bring your folks here."

Wakai said Hawaii has done well in containing the virus, and they need to reassure local residents that if they re-open for visitors it will stay that way.

You can watch the full conversation with Nestor and the Hawaii officials on In Full Zoom, Wednesday on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and KUAM-TV8.