CONGRATULATIONS to the organizers and sponsors of this weekend’s Micronesian Island Fair. Some thanks to the weather gods too, for the predicted heavy monsoon rain pretty much held off, at least while the fair was in operation. There was some rain – this is October on Guam, after all – but the sun also broke through for much of Saturday, and Sunday was relatively dry except for some early morning showers. Earlier predictions of a possible tropical storm and heavy monsoon rains turned out to be somewhat exaggerated.

This was the 25th fair, a quarter century of bringing people from all over Micronesia together to showcase their cultures to their fellow islanders and visitors. On display, and often available for sale, were baskets and stick charts from the Marshall Islands, story boards from Palau, carvings from Pohnpei and Chuuk, shells and clothing from all over, and many specialty food items.

The event utilized the permanent amphitheater at the San Vitores side of Governor Joseph Flores Beach Park, more commonly known as Ypao Park, for the dances and entertainment from the island areas. We sometimes tend to forget that we on Guam are also Micronesians, in the sense that Guam and the Mariana Islands are part of that area of the central and western Pacific known as Micronesia.

This is the perfect kind of event for Guam to host. We’re the most developed, by far, of any of the Micronesian islands, and we have airline frequency unparalleled in this part of the world for bringing not only the participants to the fair, but visitors from Asia to enjoy the event as well.

There were a bunch of businesses which contributed various levels of sponsorship to the Micronesian Island Fair, too many to mention here. So we just congratulate the Guam Visitors Bureau and everyone involved in making this silver anniversary edition of the island fair a success.

While we’re at it, we also want to commend GVB for a new program it launched last week to expand promotion of
our island through popular Internet social media websites. During the 6th Annual Global Media gathering held at the Outrigger, they announced an innovative “Shop Guam Festival 2012” campaign.

The promotion involves selecting eight individuals from target markets as “Shop Guam Festival Ambassadors.” They will be chosen based on their social media popularity and retail, fashion and travel industry influence in their home countries, to come to Guam for a shopping tour. During the GVB-sponsored tour, they’ll be posting pictures, tweeting and blogging about their experience. The shoppers will come from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Russia, the Philippines and North America.

The promotion is expected to garner as much as $4 million worth of social media publicity for Guam. The idea is to pitch Guam as a trendy, modern shopping destination, and take that message back home to the shoppers’ countries. If you’re on Facebook, Twitter or some other social media site, look for the Guam mentions from Nov. 23 to 30, and “like” them. We do, and we will.