Speaker bats for tourism plan funding

With a price tag of $2.25 million, the CNMI Tourism Strategy Plan could end up as one of the more expensive promotional campaign of the Commonwealth, but House Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider appealed to lawmakers yesterday to support the plan as a means to achieve the goal of bringing in 100,000 more Japanese tourists in 2002.

“The Governor has already submitted the plans that the Strategic Tourism Planning Committee came up with. I would like to ask for your support for this plan, particularly since time is of the essence. This plan has to be implemented this year so your immediate action is needed to put this plan into motion,” said Hofschneider.

When Rep. Oscar M. Babauta raised the question of to where the money for the plan is going to be sourced, Hofschneider said the funding would be incorporated in the Fiscal Year 2003 budget submission.

In his transmittal letter to the Legislature, Gov. Juan N. Babauta said the campaign, developed by the DFS Pacific Group at his invitation, is an outstanding example of the private sector and government working in partnership in the pursuit of common goals.

“I commend Mr. Bob Coe, president of DFS Pacific Group, for his leadership in developing the campaign,” Babauta said.

Primarily, the campaign’s goal is to add 100,000 more Japanese tourists to the 328,000 that are already projected for this year. To achieve this, the committee broke down the target market into six segments: families with children, office ladies, weddings, group tours, golfers, and retired travelers, ranked according to priority.

The committee then developed specific campaign strategies for each segment, with each segment having its own period through which it would run.

The campaign’s priority segment, the family tours, is set to be launched this June 1 and would run until September 30. It will highlight the attraction for kids, using the campaign slogan “Happy Children in Paradise.”

In the case of office ladies, the campaign—called “Beauty in Paradise”—was already supposed to have started on April 1 to December 31. The group tours campaign, dubbed as “Lucky Group in Paradise,” is set to begin on May 1 and would end on December 31.

As for golfers, the committee wants to hold two Gold Carnivals, the first of which would run from May to September and then, October to December.

The retired travelers, meanwhile, will have their “Yuttari in Paradise,” which would run from October 1 to December 31.