THE Marianas Visitors Authority’s Marianas global branding contract has been awarded to Circul8, an advertising firm based in Australia, MVA Chair Gloria Cavanagh said.
“The group have been in contact with our MVA office in Japan and Korea, and they will be here in the CNMI in the second week of June,” she added.
She said Circul8 representatives will “engage with the community and stakeholders” to create a new tourism brand for the CNMI.
According to Cavanagh, the contract amounts to $500,000 and is funded by a Community Development Block Grant for Disaster Recovery. It has to be expended by December 2025, she added.
The dates and venues for the community forum and engagement with Circul8 will be announced soon, Cavanagh said.
MVA Managing Director Jamika Taijeron said the global branding contract was awarded to Circul8 on May 1.
“The project will be completed by the end of the year,” she said.
In an earlier interview, Taijeron said she wants the world to be aware of the CNMI, Saipan, Tinian and Rota.
“I want the demand to be there so that we don’t have to beg airlines to service our location and…incentivize them. I want the demand to be there where people are booking because they want to come here and they’re paying — they’re paying a substantial amount for their tickets and on their activities and their hotels here on the islands, and that would really bring economic recovery. So that’s where I see us heading. It’s having a demand, a strong demand, from not only Japan and China and Korea…but other parts of the world,” said the MVA managing director.
Tourism, the CNMI’s sole industry, is still struggling to recover from the near-total shutdown caused by pandemic restrictions in 2020.
