Reigning Miss Pacific Islands Josie Nicholas Promotes a Sustainable Pacific at the Seatrade

– Miss Pacific Islands Josie Nicholas

As the reigning Miss Pacific Islands, I was fortunate to attend this year’s Seatrade Cruise Global event at the Broward County Convention Centre in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The event housed over 500 suppliers and is considered the world’s largest cruising trade show. For me, it was a tremendously knowledgeable and informative experience.

I want to thank the Samoa Tourism Authority for sponsoring this trip. And also thank the Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO), especially CEO Chris Cocker, for the invitation to join the team at Seatrade.

It was an honor representing our unique Pacific in the United States, an opportunity I know I wouldn’t have received without your support towards the MPIP platform.

We had the first-hand advantage of truly knowing and understanding the world of cruising, how important it is for our shores, the benefits of it, and what we can do to improve, market, and build our economy to attract more cruising in the Pacific.

This event involved 85-plus countries and people from diverse cultures and ethnicities. Tourism stakeholders, investors, partners, donors, and professionals, were there to network, share knowledge, create business partnerships and promote their country’s ports, services, and tourism attractions they provide.

Being there and interacting with Port CEOs, cruise ship owners, delegates from different countries from all continents, organizations specializing in ships’ inventions and renovations, and many more was remarkable.

While conversing with these people, I learned that so many people are interested in visiting our beautiful Pacific and would like to send their cruise ships to our shores, which was good news for us.

I also had the opportunity to share about our 20 nations under SPTO and promote our Pacific in terms of expedition cruises to promote our beautifully diverse island nations in the region.

To further reach out to more people across the globe, I interviewed a representative from all the Pacific nations present to share their perspectives on the event and their purpose of being there, which is to market their country to the world. These interviews will be shared on our Facebook page to utilize the K84 followers that we have in the hopes of reaching the bigger world out there.

I thank all who have made this trip possible for granting me this opportunity and trusted me to promote and market our beautiful Pacific. I look forward to future events and continuing my work of service with you.

Fa’afetai tele lava, Vinaka Vaka levu, tenkyu tumas.