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MVA contract with Taiwan promo firm suspended
When it came down to renew its contract with offshore companies, the Marianas Visitors Authority has decided to suspend its Taiwan offshore contract due to the lack of funding.
The contract that was suspended was AVIAREPS in Taiwan. It was learned at the recent MVA board meeting that the AVIAREPS contract has been suspended since April and will expire at the end of the month.
According to MVA’s vice chair Gloria Cavanagh, they’re going through with the contract suspension because “there’s nothing on the horizon” right now because they want to make sure that MVA has the money to promote the CNMI when it is already feasible to do so.
MVA is looking at creating so-called “travel bubbles”—an exclusive tourism partnership between neighboring or nearby countries, preferably with one that have low COVID-19 rates—and if that idea happens, Cavanagh said that MVA wants to make sure that there’s money budgeted in order to cover any expenses and MVA needs to have the means to renew the Taiwan contract.
Cavanagh says that Taiwan is also looking for countries that have low infection rates, to work out travel bubbles with. “I don’t see where we should spend money unless there’s something that is such an opportunity, those travel bubbles,” she said. “There’s no money. The projections that we see for the fiscal year 2021 are dismal. So we want to make sure that we can pay the contracts we enter into.”
MVA member Ivan Quichocho supported Cavanagh with maintaining the suspended status until revenue comes in and tourist arrivals improve.
The AVIAREPS contract was worth to $75,000.
Last June 2019, MVA already canceled its contract with AVIAREPS Marketing Garden for the Russia marketing but has maintained its contract with the company for Taiwan.
Editor’s Note: This story was re-edited after the Marianas Visitor’s Authority clarified in a Facebook message that only the Taiwan contract had been suspended.
