DFS Group has opened its newly rebranded T Galleria on the Pacific island of Guam under the watchful eye of Chairman and CEO Philippe Schaus.

The modern-looking store is currently featured in a series of pictures published by local newspaper, the Pacific Daily News. These can be be found at the following link: http://www.guampdn.com/article/20140905/NEWS01/309050009/DFS-reinvents-itself-T-Galleria

In terms of the potential market in Guam, just under 1.4m departing passengers used Guam Airport in 2013, with Japanese passengers at 70% still representing the largest visitor group. According to a new Economic Study covered by TRBusiness earlier this year by the First Hawaiian Bank, the outlook for Guam also looks very promising.

It says: “2013 was another solid growth year for tourism in Guam, with 1.334 million visitors, a level not seen since 1995-97 [This compares with 1.278m in 2012-Ed]. This demonstrates the resilience of tourism, thanks in part to increased diversification; the lower Japanese visitor count was more than made up for by more visitors from other markets. For 2014, early data shows arrivals virtually flat (down 0.6 percent) from January to April compared to 2013.”

The report continues: “The 2013 count of 1.334 million tourists visiting Guam is higher than any year since the mid-1990s, showing the industry’s resilience in weathering the effect of the weakened Japanese yen. The weaker yen since September 2012 reduced Japanese visitors to Guam by 3.9% in 2013 compared to 2012.”

[The Guam Visitors Bureau points to 893,118 Japanese arrivals down -3.9% in 2013 and 245,655 Korean arrivals – up 34.4%. Chinese arrivals numbers still have some way to go, reaching 11,225 in 2013, a rise of 25.6%. All other arrivals’ nationalities numbered less than 11,000 each-Ed].