By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

GUAM has ranked third in the latest poll of favorite Korean honeymoon destinations.
The poll was conducted with one of the leading travel journals in Korea on behaviors of Korean newlyweds for the year 2007, as well as those who got married between 2005 and 2006 as to their favorite honeymoon destinations overseas.
The Guam Visitors Bureau has long been marketing Guam as a wedding and honeymoon destination for Koreans, citing the short distance between the two places.
The survey, which took place in December 2006, included 478 married and 1,197 would-be married Korean couples in 2007.
Of 1,197 respondents who are about to get married this year, 99 percent of them said they will spend honeymoon tours overseas, which GVB considers as good news.
Naming their choice, Australia emerged as the top destination, 31 percent, followed by Maldives, 17 percent, and Guam, 8 percent.
As to the first choice of overseas honeymoon destinations that they would recommend to friends, Guam again came in third at 6 percent, following Maldives, 21 percent, and Australia, 26 percent.
Validating GVB’s thrust to increase its marketing online, 22 percent of respondents in the survey cited Internet Web sites and cafes as the number one information source providing them with practical travel-related information, as well as feedbacks of married couples.
And when asked what the major factor was in their selection of final destination, more than 33 percent of respondents said Internet travel-related cafes had the most influence on their choices.
As to the duration of honeymoon trip, most respondents said five to seven days are desirable.
About 46.1 percent of respondents cited expensive travel cost as a main reason why they don’t like to make a trip to Australia, followed by long distance, 25.8 percent.
At present, Korea is Guam’s second largest visitor source with some 90,000 Koreans who visited in 2005.
Final statistics for 2006 Korean visitor arrivals are not available yet but GVB has been aiming to surpass the 100,000- mark for the Korean visitor market.
Fifteen years ago, Guam was the first to promote overseas travel in Korea and at the height of the market in 1997, Guam received almost 200,000 Korean visitors.
But since then, other destinations have sprung up that competed with Guam by offering cheap prices. In addition, the crash of a Korean Airlines flight on Guam severely cut the number of Korean tourists during the late ‘90s.
Still, GVB officials remain optimistic because Korean arrivals to Guam have been on an upswing.
One of the segments that GVB continues to target is the Korean wedding and honeymoon market and the bureau regularly sends delegations to the annual Weddex bridal and wedding exhibition show in Korea.