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MVA allocates $15K for World Tourism festivities
MVA, World, Tourism, Month, Saipan
The Marianas Visitors Authority board has approved the appropriation of $15,000 for the number of events planned for the upcoming World Tourism Day on Sept. 27.
According to MVA managing director Priscilla Iakopo, it was originally estimated that hosting the festivities would cost around $9,000 but they realized the event would cost more because of the number of activities they’ve lined up.
“We were requesting of $9500 [but] it looks like after plugging in a few numbers, we might need more funding rather than $9,500. It could [cost] up to $15,000 for this list of events, or this list of activities for this day,” she said.
Iakopo said MVA has a handful of events planned for Sept. 27, including a themed run, various contests, cleanups, and more.
“With communications with the United Nations World Tourism Organization, we were informed that Sept. 27 is World Tourism Day. We would like to have a series of activities for that day. That would include having a social media contest or radio trivia, we wanted to do cleanups as well as having historical and cultural activities for high school students to visit the museum as well as demonstrations of art and local cuisines at the Sugar King Park. In the evening, we would like to have a World Tourism Day sunset fun run. I actually called the Carolinian Affairs Office as well as Indigenous Affairs Office if they wanted to join this list of events,” she said.
Iakopo said the themed run will be special as it will embrace the CNMI culture. “For this sunset fun run, we were thinking of having a contest in ‘dress in your indigenous cultural wear’ and we will issue out prizes for that. This is to really emphasize the importance of tourism here in the CNMI, as it is our economic driver and industry,” she said.
During the MVA monthly board meeting last week, the board unanimously voted in support of the planned activities.
