THE Marianas Visitors Authority represented The Marianas at the Hiroshima Flower Festival 2025 on May 3-5, 2025, in Japan.
The festival is the biggest annual event in Hiroshima and aims to connect Hiroshima with the world, according to its website. The festival was held at Peace Memorial Park in the city’s center. Commemorating the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II, the festival recognizes “stillness” as its theme.
MVA had a promotional booth and the indigenous Carolinian dance group Refaluwasch Domatsuri Warriors joined other dance troupes who performed at the festival. At the Marianas Cultural Experience Booth, festivalgoers had the opportunity to learn “mwar”-making and coconut frond weaving and take pictures with the dancers. MVA also shared information promoting The Marianas and distributed destination brochures.
“We were grateful to be invited to participate in this year’s Hiroshima Flower Festival and made the most of our opportunity to share about the beauty of The Marianas with the huge number of attendees,” said MVA Acting Managing Director Judy C. Torres, who led the MVA delegation. “On the heels of a visit to Saipan and Tinian by a delegation from Hiroshima last January, this is one more step toward the goal of renewing ties between our islands and Japan. Hiroshima is particularly significant this year as we commemorate 80 years of peace since World War II. Our marketing team and our indigenous cultural representatives worked together to convey a sense of friendship and peace to everyone we met, which is what visitors can expect when they come to our shores.”
Chairman Takashi Nakamoto of the Hiroshima Prefecture Assembly — who led the delegation of elected officials and businesspeople to The Marianas in January — personally visited The Marianas booth at the festival. Over 1.7 million people attended the event, which also include paper crane monuments, lighting of peace candles, flower displays, and — this year — concerts and traditional Japanese dance.
Chairman Takashi Nakamoto of Hiroshima Prefectural Assembly, center in black, joins The Marianas delegation at Hiroshima Flower Festival 2025 held on May 3-5, 2025 in Hiroshima, Japan. Nakamoto led a Hiroshima delegation of elected officers and businesspeople who visited Saipan and Tinian in The Marianas in January 2025 to explore opportunities for partnerships in government, business, education, and cross-cultural exchange.
Festivalgoers at Hiroshima Flower Festival 2025 on May 3-5, 2025 in Hiroshima, Japan, learn “mwar”-making at The Marianas booth. Marianas Visitors Authority Deputy Managing Director Judy C. Torres, right, led a Marianas delegation in marketing Tinian, Saipan, and Rota to 1.7 million attendees of the event, the largest annual festival in Hiroshima.
The Carolinian dance group Refaluwasch Domatsuri Warriors performs at Hiroshima Flower Festival 2025 on May 4, 2025, in Hiroshima, Japan. The group was part of a delegation from the Marianas Visitors Authority that participated in the event to promote The Marianas.
Candles for peace from school children are displayed at Hiroshima Flower Festival 2025 on May 3-5, 2025, in Hiroshima, Japan. The Marianas Visitors Authority had a promotional booth and presented Carolinian dances at the festival to promote The Marianas.
