The search continues for the Guam Visitors Bureau’s for a new CEO/president, and the agency has confirmed with KUAM News that more than a dozen have applied for the job - some based near and far.

The 13 applicants jumped from six, as announced during Monday’s GVB board meeting, to over a dozen by Wednesday’s deadline to apply. Acting CEO/president Gerry Perez confirming with KUAM News today that GVB’s search committee will start reviewing the pile come Friday.

“It’s going to take more than a day to go through the different candidates. We have some local applicants and some off-island applicants, so they’re gonna have to do it individually and collectively," he stated. He also remained tight-lipped on who threw their names in the hat for consideration.

Though, as KUAM reported, Kaz Endo, a longtime entrepreneur and CEO of the advertising company 8Ronin, is among the GVB helm hopefuls.

The search for new leadership follows former CEO/president Carl Gutierrez’s resignation from his role back in November, preceded by a report from more than a handful of tourism industry stakeholders detailing the island’s lagging visitor recovery.

Perez described what GVB is looking for by saying, “I think one of the most important considerations is the candidate's strategic thinking ability and the candidate's ability to amass multi-dimensional factors coalesce it into a coherent strategy that would make impact on the current situation.”

Perez also adds the job also calls for forward thinking with an eye for emerging trends, noting, "They ought to have a futuristic outlook on where the tourism industry is heading and how we can get ahead of it."

The search committee is comprised of GVB board members Peter Ada, Ken Yanagisawa, and Ho Eun.

KUAM reached out to Adelup on Governor Lou Leon Guerrero’s recommendation to the board. The Maga’haga’s communications director Krystal Paco San Agustin, telling KUAM, “We remain confident in the board’s selection.”