For the 12th year, the Marianas Visitors Authority is welcoming children to the Northern Mariana Islands this summer with a free gift, a backpack featuring the NMI Saipan-da mascot.<\/p>\n
Over 10,000 children are expected to receive the gift as a reminder of their trip to the islands. From July 1 to Sept. 30, 2011, each visiting child under the age of 11 will receive from participating hotels a coupon redeemable for a free, limited edition Saipan-da backpack.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Happy Children in Paradise\u2019 remains one of our most popular on-island campaigns,\u201d said MVA marketing manager Bruce Bateman. \u201cWith these backpacks, we put a smile on the children\u2019s faces and a tangible reminder of their visit in their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saipan-da is a panda-rhinoceros, cartoon style mascot that has helped increase awareness of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. The mascot is a household word in Japan, the Northern Marianas\u2019 primary market, and was featured at this year\u2019s huge Japan Association of Travel Agents trade fair and on many TV shows. The word Saipan-da is a triple play on words in the Japanese language and fosters a positive image.<\/p>\n
Coupons will be redeemed at DFS Galleria, where a life-size Saipan-da will greet children and their families and be available for picture taking. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the 12th year, the Marianas Visitors Authority is welcoming children to the Northern Mariana Islands this summer with a free gift, a backpack featuring the NMI Saipan-da mascot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}