Friday, April 18, 2014

Guam Enterprise Initiative: One Village, One Product


By Fred R. Schumann, Ph.D.

 


Over the last five decades Guam's tourism industry has served as an engine for its economic growth.  However, not all segments of the community of Guam actively engage in commercial activities with tourists and therefore receive little direct benefits from the tourism industry. Because of the many large corporations involved in the tour agent-dominated industry, economic benefits for residents are further reduced due to a high level of leakage of the tourists' spending on Guam.  The direct income for an area is the amount of tourist expenditure that remains locally after taxes, profits, and wages are paid outside the area and after imports are purchased; these subtracted amounts are called leakage.  Recent tourism studies show that each visitor to Guam spends $1,100 on-island, but as much as 54% ends up leaving Guam.  Leakage estimates in other destinations like the Caribbean islands are as high as 80%.  One way to address the issue of leakage is for residents to work together as a community and better market locally produced tourism products that meet the needs of visitors. 


Dr. Anita Borja Enriquez with a shopkeeper from Yufuin, Oita. Customers can sample local jams and observe the production of goods--all part of the shopping experience.
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A team from the University of Guam is in the process of gathering data to develop an inventory of agricultural clusters by village and will be using this information to encourage the creation of value-added products by village residents.  The team, comprised of members from the School of Business and Public Administration, then plans to introduce the One-Village-One-Product (OVOP) strategy through the linking of village agriculture and heritage tourism. This strategy is being implemented on Guam so that residents may benefit economically from the tourism industry by building up linkages with suppliers of goods and services for commercial activities involving signature products from each village.


Assortment of kabosu products. Kabosu is a juicy green citrus fruit (like Yuzu) with the sharpness of lemon, used in Japanese dishes. OVOP was first introduced by Governor Hiramatsu in Oita, Japan.  Successfully implemented as a regional development program in 1979, the communities had to selectively produce goods with highly added value and one village should produce one product that was competitive and stable and use this particular product to gain sales revenue in the market.  In Oita, the average annual income doubled, with OVOP products now sold in Narita International Airport and Kansai International Airport, thus making revenues for villages involved in the OVOP movement.  Similarly, the promotion of residents’ engagement in value-added production and service will result in economic self-sufficiency at the village level.  This can lead to export potential of heritage-based food and agriculture products, and ultimately to shrink leakage and maximize the circulation of tourism revenue within the local economy.

The team plans to develop a map similar to that of Oita and further develop economic opportunities for residents by linking village agriculture and heritage tourism.  It involves pursuing a specialization strategy with each of Guam’s 19 villages identifying one or two products, goods or services that will eventually create a specific image to attract visitors and investments.  The purpose is to show that each village has some uniqueness in terms of its history, culture, agriculture, or natural beauty.

For more information, contact the Guam OVOP project team at 735-2525 or guamovop@gmail.com.

Fred R. Schumann, Ph.D. is a resident tourism expert with the UOG Pacific Center for Economic Initiatives, and Associate Professor of Global Resources Management at the School of Business and Public Administration, University of Guam.