‘Marketing needed quickly’

With the assessment on facilities completed, the next best thing to do is market the Marianas as potential sites, which includes providing information about the facilities, hotels, and other important aspects that would be key in convincing the committees to conduct their training in the Marianas.

William Tucker of Tucker and Associates said this during an interview at the Governor’s Office Monday.

He also disclosed that the Canadian Olympic Committee has notified him that they would conduct a board meeting on April 15-17, while the U.S. Olympic Committee would meet on April 28-30. The meetings, he said, would serve as a great opportunity to market the Marianas as potential training sites.

“We were not on the radar screen until we made this [recent] visit and that’s why marketing is so important and to do it very quickly,” he said. “So we’re short of under the gun in that the NMI and Guam now need to come up with the money to do the marketing because [committees] already coming through and they’re going to make their decisions this year as to where they’re going to do their acclimating training.

“We need to start moving or [Marianas] is going to miss the window. [Committees] will make their decisions and once they sign agreements with someone else, they’re stuck and would go there.”

He reiterated that if U.S. athletes would not use the facilities here, athletes from other countries can also be tapped, but the “sooner the better.”

With the assessment completed, Tucker and Associates offered to continue on the project and work on the marketing, provided the Marianas—NMI and Guam—“puts up the money.”

Tucker said marketing fees, in addition to travel expenses, would cost the Marianas about $250,000, a fee that would be split between Guam and the Commonwealth.

He said his group would distribute brochures as well as a video to the National Governing Body of various sports, suggesting that the visitor authorities on Guam and Saipan use the information they have already in creating the brochure.

Further, he said he recommended to the two governments that the NMI and Guam form an intra-Marianas sports authority that would serve as the body that would respond to the NGBs.

“They want to go to one place to get everything they need to know,” he said. “That’s the priority right now. The authority would provide all the details about hotels, from low-end, mid-range, and high-end costs because the different NGBs have different budgets. Some would want low-end costs while other want suites.”

He recommended the authority to consist of representatives from both the public and private sectors, such as the sports bodies on both territories, as well as representatives from the hotel association, visitor authority, and governor’s office.

“Once we start the marketing, once the authority is establish, we could just send [information] to the NGBs so they have the information and could just email and say when they’re coming [if they are coming] and what they would like to look at,” he said.

He reiterated that “quick movement” is necessary because the NGBs may want to visit the sites soon.

Tucker was co-chair of international relations committee of the USOC for four years, “so I know the workings and the people so we can market this as good as anyone could to the Olympic committees and NGBs.”