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Guam Visitors Bureau: Over 200 offers available in eighth year of Shop Guam e-Festival

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The Guam Visitors Bureau (GVB) is proud to announce that 142 local businesses are taking part in the eighth annual Shop Guam e-festival, providing 208 special offers to island residents and visitors. The GVB signature event launches on Thursday, November 10, 2019, and will run through Thursday, February 10, 2019.

“With over 200 exclusive offers every year from our local businesses, everyone can take part in the Shop Guam e-Festival, for free,” said GVB President and CEO Pilar Laguaña. “Shop Guam is the only campaign that our industry stakeholders can promote their products and services across our diverse source visitor markets. We encourage everyone to download the free app and take advantage of the different experiences and deals, especially during the holiday season.”

Inspired by Airbnb’s Experience Marketplace, GVB is also inviting all aspiring businesses or talents to host an event or experience through Shop Guam.

“Our most significant new focus this year is to bring Shop Guam into the 19 districts and 24 villages across Guam,” said GVB Director of Global Marketing Nadine Leon Guerrero. “We are actively recruiting small village vendors and entrepreneurs to be a part of Shop Guam. It supports GVB’s ongoing effort to extend tourism outside of Tumon and create an impact for Guam’s community at large.”

Shop Guam Ambassadors to promote e-Festival

Seven social media influencers from China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are on the island this week to help boost the awareness of the e-Festival launch. These ambassadors, chosen by GVB, have over 2.6 million followers, across different social media platforms that include Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, YouTube, Weibo, and Naver. They will also have a more immersive community experience hosted by some of Guam’s aspiring local talents. The 2019 Shop Guam e-Festival influencers are Po Yan (Hong Kong), So Hee Nam (Korea), Ayaka Kawaguchi (Japan), Karen Okajima (Japan), Peter Su (Taiwan), Ruo Guam Nian Hua (China) and An Lan (China).

Upcoming promotional features

The Shop Guam mobile app will continue to be the primary marketing toolkit to help GVB to promote our local attractions and offers. Since GVB launched the Shop Guam mobile app, it has achieved just nearly 200,000 total user downloads. The app will again come with the iBeacon Bluetooth enabled proximity marketing technology and QR Code to send push notifications to the app users when they are near a participating merchant. GVB is also producing social media micro-videos featuring all the merchants and their offers in the campaign throughout GVB’s global social media network, including GVB’s Instagram Stories and TikTok China channel.

Evolution of Shop Guam

The Shop Guam e-Festival began in 2012 with only 10 merchants and has now connected with more than 962 merchants promoting to global markets and tourists. The campaign has attracted 2.2 million visitors to Guam with the ability to reach GVB’s top source markets through innovative marketing technology.

The Shop Guam e-Festival mobile app received the 2017 Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold Award for the best mobile app category. In addition, the Shop Guam campaign supported GVB’s historic recognition as the first tourism office in the United States to win the prestigious President’s “E” Award for tourism export excellence.

For more information, contact GVB’s Shop Guam e-Festival liaison Robbie Gerrie S.N. Bautista at shopguam@visitguam.org or call (671) 797-9900.

MEDIA CONTACT: JOSH TYQUIENGCO, Public Information Officer, GUAM VISITORS BUREAU, Office: (671) 646-5278, josh.tyquiengco@visitguam.org   

IGLTA Foundation’s new NYC think tank to address key issues in LGBTQ+ Tourism

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The International LGBTQ+ Travel Association Foundation (IGLTAF) inaugural Leadership Think Tank will unite top executives from LGBTQ+ welcoming destinations around the globe at Google during IGLTA’s 36th Annual Global Convention in New York City this April. The invitation-only discussion will focus on responsible tourism through the lens of LGBTQ+ welcoming travel and is presented with support from Miles Partnership and Google.

“IGLTA strives to continuously drive the conversations around LGBTQ+ travel to reflect our ever-evolving industry,” said IGLTA President/CEO John Tanzella. “We’re proud that IGLTAF has assembled for this important dialogue such an influential group of industry veterans from destinations and organizations that value our LGBTQ+ travel community.”

The Leadership Think Tank, organized in collaboration with NYC & Company and NYU’s Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, will include leaders from Destination Canada, Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board, Cape Town Tourism, Destination DC, Italy National Tourist Board, Visit Dallas, Destination Niagara USA, Bermuda Tourism Authority, Discover Puerto Rico, Embratur (Brazil), Visit California, Milano Smart City Association, Greater Boston CVB, Destinations International, Tourism Madrid, Guam Visitors Bureau, U.S. Travel Association, Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB, Barcelona Tourism, Visit Salt Lake City, Thailand Tourism, and Greater Miami CVB.

“Accepting a seat at the leadership table during this invitation-only roundtable is important to affirm Bermuda’s position as a welcoming destination to all travelers, including the LGBTQ+ visitors,” said Kevin Dallas, CEO of the Bermuda Tourism Authority. “We applaud the IGLTA Foundation’s role in convening such diverse destinations to discuss critical issues facing the industry.”

A white paper from the session will be provided to the trade press and IGLTA’s global membership that focuses on five topics:
• Addressing issues of destination overcrowding as it impacts LGBTQ + travelers
• Analyzing the differences between LGBTQ+ travel niches and integration of LGBTQ+ travelers into the “mainstream”
• Diversifying LGBTQ+ products and services
• Examining cultural perspectives that impact LGBTQ+ tourism
• Discussing the challenges facing LGBTQ+ business owners in emerging destinations

“It’s a privilege to work with IGLTAF and to be a part of this special event, which is pondering some of the key forward-looking issues facing travel and tourism,” said U.S. Travel Association President/CEO Roger Dow. “This will be a terrific lineup engaging one of the most valuable practices we can undertake as an industry: anticipating and planning for challenges, which will better enable us to sustain our strength as an economic engine and job creator.”

Daniela Wagner, Group Business Development Director, Jacobs Media Group & Director EMEA, Pacific Asia Travel Association, and Fred Mayo, MBA, PhD, CHE, CHT, Founder, Mayo Consulting Services and Clinical Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, NYU, will co-moderate the Leadership Think Tank.

The 36th Annual IGLTA Global Convention would not be possible without the generous support of our convention sponsors: Presenting Level – NYC & Company, Delta Air Lines, Disney Destinations©, Italian National Tourist Board; Official Level – AIG Travel, Inc., Airbnb, Guam Visitors Bureau, Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, Italian National Tourist Board, Malta Tourism Authority, Visit Philadelphia®; Conference Level – Inprotur Argentina, Visit Britain, VisitDallas, International Experience Canada/Government of Canada, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Miles Partnership, Q.Digital, Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, Visit West Hollywood.

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Strong interest in Guam grows at travel fair in Malaysia

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GVB

Guam continues to generate strong interest in Malaysia and was one of the newer and popular destinations featured at the country’s top consumer travel fair.

The Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) Fair is a bi-annual travel fair that ran from March 15-17, 2019 in Kuala Lumpur. Over 1,300 booths took up about 95,000 feet of exhibition space in seven halls at the Putra World Trade Centre. Guam was among the 272 organizations that were present to include travel and tour agencies, national tourism organizations, hotels, resorts, theme parks, cruises and other businesses. Organizers estimated this year’s fair to exceed over 110,000 visitors and sales of over $51 million. This is Guam’s second time having a presence at the event.

Mayor Robert Hofmann, committee chairman of the Guam Visitors Bureau’s North America and Pacific Market, noted that as an emerging market for Guam, Malaysian visitors are intrigued they can travel to the island visa-free.

“I think there’s huge interest in Guam from not only the Malaysia population, but also people that travel to Malaysia from countries like Singapore, the Middle East, and India,” said Hofmann. “It’s great to see they’re excited about Guam. It’s exotic to them and it’s a new destination they’re looking forward to seeing. They don’t know much about our history, but they are a culture similar to ours. We should start to learn more about their culture because we have so many commonalities and could retrace some of our steps to Southeast Asia where the CHamoru people came from.”
GVB
North America and Pacific Marketing Manager Mark Manglona conducts a Guam product presentation to Philippine Airlines and travel agents in Malaysia.
GVB
Team Guam takes a group photo at the Guam booth in the 2019 MATTA Fair.
GVB
A look at some of the 1,300 booths that were at the 2019 MATTA Fair in Kuala Lumpur.


A culture at the forefront

Fairgoers witnessed multiple performances from Guma Taotao Tano at the three-day event as they shared Guam’s unique CHamoru culture through song and dance.

“Malaysia is a very rich cultural place,” said Guma Taotao Tano musician Vince San Nicolas. “I believe that our 4,000-year-old history is vital to share with them in person. Bringing out the re-identification and resurgence of the CHamoru culture is very important to share with the rest of the world so that we’re known as the CHamorus from Guam and the Marianas.”

Airline and travel agents create Guam packages

While in Kuala Lumpur, GVB met with Philippine Airlines and other travel agents for a Guam product presentation to further develop the Malaysia market.

Philippine Air offered special fares from Malaysia to Guam via Manila during the MATTA Fair.  Travel agents, such as Apple Vacations and Golden Tourworld Travel,  have also been promoting six-day packages to Guam.  The agents have already confirmed Guam is scheduled to welcome group travelers from Malaysia in the coming months.

“We’ve been making great leads and strides in promoting Guam in the region,” said GVB North America and Pacific Marketing Manager Mark Manglona. “We’ve developed key partnerships with travel agents who have put up all-inclusive travel packages and we also have a very good relationship with Philippine Airlines. They’ve been very supportive and connected us with travel agents.  There is a tremendous opportunity to promote Guam in Malaysia and we look forward to growing and developing this new market.”

The next MATTA Fair will be in September 2019.

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