The Guam Visitors Bureau was put in the hot seat before senators during an oversight hearing earlier this week. Lawmakers who gave $10 million in airline incentives to boost arrivals, scrutinizing what's happening with those funds amid slow tourism recovery.

Senators grilled GVB's board and management for nearly four hours Monday on the current state of tourism, which oversight chair Senator Jesse Lujan said is “fighting for its life”. The veteran policymaker said, "Guam's economy is not in recovery mode. We are not in the ‘let's wait and see’ phase. We are in an ICU on life support."

One concern brought up was the $10 million airline incentive appropriated by the Guam Legislature for Fiscal Year 2026, which GVB still has yet to receive. Senator Shawn Gumataotao declared, "I am absolutely frustrated with this administration. I'm hoping that the cabinet members…get on your phones right now to the office of the Governor of Guam and say, ‘Hey, this whole oversight hearing started with this whole thing is on life support or ICU. How about we get past this impasse and let's make it work?"

The temporary incentives are expected to help GVB meet an “optimistic” goal of over a million arrivals this fiscal year, alongside a significant increase in tax collections. But visitor arrivals are still less than half, or 45 percent, of pre-pandemic levels, compared to over 1.6 million in FY 2019.

GVB president and CEO Regine Biscoe Lee said, "Following COVID, we had a perfect storm with Typhoon Mawar, airline crashes, accidents, merger, global supply challenges, martial law in Korea, foreign exchange volatility. Again, I've been on the job for seven months, and despite all these challenges, we're starting to see  signs of life and momentum."

Biscoe Lee said as of September, Guam welcomed 546,227 visitors for calendar year 2025, a 1.8 percent decrease compared to last year. "What I'd like to refocus on is our current momentum," she stated. "And that's arrivals in August and arrivals in September, which are both up– 17 percent in August and 15 percent in September year over year."

To recoup the investment of the airline incentive, GVB board chairman George Chiu said, "We need 222,000 additional tourists for fiscal year 2026 to be able to make up for tha t$10 million."

GVB says they're committed to meeting that number, but Senator Gumataotao asked who will take responsibility if they come up short. "Unfortunately, you know, things roll downhill. So, who gets cut first?" he asked. Lee responded, "That would be me, senator."

Chiu echoed, "Regine would be the first one to get cut. That's the honest answer. If this were a private business, the first person to get cut would be her. The second person to get cut would be me."

"I mean, you've just got to be tougher on this," Gumataotao said, with Lee responding, "No, it's a fair comparison to draw. We're all here to serve."

In the meantime, GVB is working with the Department of Administration on a payment plan.