TAO performance audit of Visitors Bureau reveals there is no marketing plan

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A Performance Audit of the American Samoa Visitors Bureau — for the last three fiscal years from 2020 through 2022 — by the ASG’s Territorial Audit Office, identified five findings and several recommendations with which the Bureau and its board of directors generally concurred, according to the TAO’s Performance Audit Report released late last week.

And the report, which covers the first performance audit conducted by TAO on the Bureau since its establishment in 2009 by local law as a semi autonomous agency, is provided to the governor and the Legislature — and the audit was part of the TAO’s annual work-plan for 2023.

According to the report, the primary objectives of this audit were to evaluate internal controls, for compliance with applicable policies, procedures, laws and regulations pertaining to the following:

•           Purchases, Receiving, and Disbursements

•           Personnel, Payroll Processing, and Accounting

•           Fixed Assets Accounting - movements (acquisitions, disposals, transfers and depreciation) and physical verification

•           Governance processes for Conflicts of Interest Processes, Disclosure and Monitoring.

FIRST FINDING

“The Bureau has not developed a framework for competitiveness to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of its performance,” is the first TAO finding identified in the report.

According to TAO, its review of quarterly performance reports by the Bureau reveal that significant work has been done by the Bureau and a considerable array of information is being reported to move towards improved performance.

(Samoa News notes that the quarterly performance reports referred to by TAO are those provided by each ASG entity for every quarter of the fiscal year to the governor and the Fono.)

However, TAO identified two deficiencies with the present arrangement. The first is that, although there are efforts toward establishing an effective approach, the Bureau currently has no overall guiding framework for competitiveness, standards or methodology have been introduced to engender consistency or the methods used to produce such information.

For instance, according to the Bureau’s Marketing Manager, the Bureau has no marketing plan, according to TAO.

The second deficiency: the Bureau’s reporting system lacks a proper assessment and validation of reported information. “As a result, whatever information is reported has not been subject to a Board review — absence of regular Board meetings and no documented minutes,” TAO explained.

“It is anomalous that performance information goes unvalidated,” the auditors said and noted that performance reporting practices by the Bureau satisfy a number, but not all.

To further raise the standard of accountability to ASG, the TAO recommends actions to further reform and refine the performance reporting framework and to achieve greater consistency.

Additionally, the Bureau shall consider other options such as creating a limited set of meaningful and robust indicators useful for evaluation and to measure tourism competitiveness over time and guide in its policy choices.

Furthermore, the aim of the framework is not to produce an index or ranking against the most competitive destinations but to provide a tool guide within the Bureau to analyze tourism competitiveness and inform policies.

TAO reiterated that: “The Bureau needs to develop a framework for competitiveness to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of reported information to support the delivery of its marketing plan(s) and performance.”

TAO went on to explain that the Bureau currently does not have a capability model or framework for competitiveness in place to evaluate and report the efficiency, effectiveness and economy of its performance.

It points out that the Bureau’s Board of directors lack of transparency where meetings are not held monthly and minutes were not documented for important matters and key decisions discussed, making it difficult for the Bureau to assess its performance.

Although data was collected and ranges of existing performance reports are provided to the board, TAO argued, “there is a lack of comparable indicators over time. This means that the Board did not place itself in a position to identify and address ongoing issues and tends to respond reactively to concerns.”

TAO auditors also found that the resulting performance information is routinely presented as part of quarterly financial and performance reporting but that information is not optimally used to support the monitoring and management of resources.

TAO provided two recommendations, in which the Bureau through the Board of directors, introduces a framework for competitiveness and reporting of performance which will:

•           Provide a consistent approach to performance accountability and standards for data collection. The performance measures must be accurate, reliable, relevant, reviewed and endorsed in Board minutes.

•           Information validation be made a policy requirement

RESPONSE

In its response, a summary included in the TAO report, the Bureau explained that the American Samoa Tourism Master Plan, includes the “Strategic Tourism Framework”.

The Bureau points out that COVID-19 greatly impacted and changed the tourism, travel and hospitality industry on a global level. Prior tourism and marketing practices needed to and continue to be evaluated with these industry changes and as such, all plans for our territorial tourism industry development are being assessed and developed to address these world-wide industry changes.

“American Samoa’s borders fully opened January 2023, thus sufficient time has not been given for full evaluation,” the Bureau noted. “All development plans and programs are undergoing modifications and/or complete revisions.”

On the second recommendation, the Bureau acknowledged it with a “thank you”.

Samoa News will report on future editions on other findings and details in the TAO report.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Local law states that the Bureau is headed by a five member, Board of Directors nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Fono. Members are appointed for terms of three (3) years and serve without compensation.

The Board consist of one-member from the Department of Commerce;  one member from the Office of Samoa Affairs; two members representing airline, travel agency, hotel, lodging, or cruise ship industries 
and; one member from the American Samoa Chamber of Commerce.

Local law also outlines the roles and responsibilities of the Board, which among other things, are to review and approve every activity proposed by Bureau management prior to execution.

The TAO audit report also provides information summary on the board as well as its responsibilities.