{"id":268895,"date":"2018-01-29T06:06:01","date_gmt":"2018-01-28T20:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=268895"},"modified":"2018-01-29T06:06:01","modified_gmt":"2018-01-28T20:06:01","slug":"quichocho-chambers-2017-bpoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/quichocho-chambers-2017-bpoy\/","title":{"rendered":"Quichocho is Chamber\u2019s 2017 BPOY"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Michael Sablan, left, the Saipan Chamber of Commerce\u2019s 2016 Businessperson of the Year, presents the award to 2017 Businessperson of the Year to Ivan Quichocho.\u00a0(Erwin Encinares)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ivan Quichocho, a top executive of TanHoldings Corp., was named the Saipan Chamber of Commerce\u2019s 2017 Businessperson of the Year during a dinner gala last Saturday at the Hibiscus Hall of the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan.<\/p>\n

Quichocho, vice president for business development at TanHoldings, got the plum in a surprise announcement at the gala. The other nominees were Velma Palacios of IT&E, Yoshihito Shibahata of Pacific Islands Club, and Ty Pauling of Hyatt Regency Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an absolute honor,\u201d said Quichocho.<\/p>\n

According to him, he has been nominated at least four times for the prestigious award in the past but he declined past nominations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my first time I\u2019ve accepted, and it\u2019s quite a privilege and an honor,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Business Person of the Year Gala, formerly known as the Chamber\u2019s Installation Dinner, is the organization\u2019s signature fundraising event. Last Saturday\u2019s gala, a masquerade ball, also saw the installation of the Chamber\u2019s new officers and board members. They are Palacios, Michael Johnson of Deloitte & Touche, Alex Sablan of Century Insurance, Perry Inos Jr. of Triple J, Ron Smith of Angil Design, Pauling, Donna Krum of Friends First Marketing, Alex K. Youn of AC Pacific, and Kevin McCale of Docomo Pacific.<\/p>\n

There was also a silent auction.<\/p>\n

It was earlier explained that the name of the gala was changed from \u201cInstallation Dinner\u201d to \u201cBusiness Person of the Year Gala\u201d to focus on the BPOY nominees.<\/p>\n

The nominees were judged by the prior recipients of the BPOY award and by the four officers of the Chamber board.<\/p>\n

Quichocho believes that competition in the tourism industry just gets fiercer and fiercer on a global stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2026have to acknowledge that the competition out there globally is growing. They\u2019re coming to this game newer, faster, and with more resources,\u201d said Quichocho, referring to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Philippines has well over a million arrivals from [South] Korea. That is our No. 1 tourist market and now Vietnam is entering the fray. They are coming at [South] Korea as source market very aggressively,\u201d he added, saying both countries are somewhat newer destinations compared to the CNMI.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026The playing field has changed,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have North Korea aiming missiles at them and they are not suffering [from] this labor situation that we are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes that cooperation is essential to continue the economic growth of the CNMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to work together and work faster just to maintain our current market share. It\u2019s going to be tough in 2018. We need to get our ducks in a row and focus on becoming a better and more dynamic destination,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ivan Quichocho, a top executive of TanHoldings Corp., was named the Saipan Chamber of Commerce\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":268905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[19723,3916,7911,201],"class_list":["post-268895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-ivan-quichocho","tag-north-korea","tag-saipan-chamber","tag-vietnam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268895","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}