The Korea Guam Marketing Committee (KGMC) held its inaugural meeting on Guam, hosted by the Guam Visitors Bureau. The newly formed committee, comprised of managers from Korea’s top travel agencies, airlines, and related companies, was introduced by the GVB at the January 2007 meeting of the Korea Guam Tourism Council (KGTC). The KGMC will be the working committee of its parent organization, the KGTC, which is composed exclusively of upper level managers from the Korean tourism industry.

The strategy for the first KGMC meeting, attended by members of the KGMC, GVB, and GVB Korea, was to solidify relations with GVB and to present its proposals for developing and increasing the volume of traffic by Korean visitors to Guam. Management of the KGMC was determined with the election of Jin-Kyu Park of Redcap Tour as Chairman and Keum-Ja Choi from Online Tour as Vice Chairman. The meeting also included discussion on methods to improve cooperation amongst both Korean and Guam based businesses within the visitor industry.

Chairman Jin-Kyu Park stated, “Even though there has been a trend of contraction in Guam Vacation among people, we plan to develop various activities to boost travels to Guam with stronger support from and close cooperation among Guam Visitors Bureau, air carriers and travel agencies.”

GVB General Manager Gerald S.A. Perez agreed and said, “I am happy that the Guam Visitors Bureau will strengthen its partnership with tour agents and airlines through the KGMC, which will help raise awareness of Guam, develop attractive travel packages by collaboratively working together and thereby increase arrivals to Guam throughout the year.”

Held on Guam, the meeting allowed members to experience firsthand the new attractions, facilities, and improvements on Guam and also afforded local businesses the opportunity to introduce their products and services to KGMC members, who are now tasked to help raise awareness about Guam to Korean travelers. The fifteen members of the newly formed KGMC are: Chul-Hee Lee (Lotte Tour), Myung-Kyu Sun (Mode Tour), Jin-Kyu Park (Redcap Tour), Mi-Jung Song (Sungdo Tour), Eun-Hee Nam (Sejung Tourmall), Mi-Hyun Kim (SK Tourvis), Kuem-Ja Choi (Online Tour), Sun-Kyung Kim (Very Good Tour), Jin-Soo Kim (Tour 2000), Sang-Kook Yoon (Hana Tour), Jong-Chul Ko (Hanjin Tour), Ki-Joon Kim (Hyundai Dream Tour), Sang-Gun Lee (Korean Air Lines), Chang-Ho Lee (Korea Air Lines), and Ham-Su Kang (GVB Korea).

In the future, the KGMC will meet bimonthly to discuss support for extra and regular flights, selective and strategic advertisement, and execution of Guam image advertisements. There are great expectations that the KGMC will become an invaluable asset to increasing Korean arrivals to Guam.