Splish! Splash! Bash! The Guam Visitors Bureau hosted a spectacle to remember at Governor Joseph Flores Memorial Park from noon to night on Saturday and Sunday, June 7 and 8. Cultural pride pierced through the downpour and glimmered under intermittent sunlight during the 37th Annual Guam Micronesia Island Fair in and around Ypao Beach in Tumon.
Packed with Pacific island cultural booths and demonstrations right in GVB’s backyard, the wet weekend symbolized tropical people from different backgrounds sticking together through rain or shine, thick and thin, come what may.
Dancers, prancers, and legendary chanters from Yap, Chuuk and Pulap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, the Northern Marianas and Guam graced our main stage and forestage with their mesmerizing choreography and raptures. The rhythmic stepping of winsome performers dressed in the regalia of Oceania brightened the visit of every fairgoer.
Moms, dads, kids, and kin feasted on the tasty treats of food trucks and snack stands and frolicked through a moist, grassy ‘boardwalk’ interspersed with games, culinary delights, island heritage displays, handicrafts, jewelry, trinkets, toys and prizes. It was a free-admission, alcohol-free, family-friendly get-together that held appeal for every age group.
Nearby, fleet-footed beach-flaggers jockeyed for position, sprinting over a white-sand court lapped by the tender ripples of aquamarine Tumon Bay. Between the reef and shore, outrigger canoe racers paddled through one heat after another in homage to the traditional skills and instruments of navigation that have intertwined the islands of our region for millennia.
Each day was capped by an irie night of live musical performances by talented local acts such as Island Pulse, Jonah Hålom, Malak Mo’na, Microchild, Mix Plate, and Pacific Cool leading up to headliners including Palau-born Saipan recording artist Parker Yobei and rising Hawaiian reggae star Jordan T.
A lasting impression
Our motif this year was “Kanta yan Baila: Celebrate the Harmony of Micronesia.” Yet, GMIF 2025 was anything but the same old song and dance. Rather, it was a singing and dancing for renewed joy. Fittingly, GMIF 2025’s theme is a call to action all year long.
As we keep practicing our unique island cultures and embracing our oneness as a region, we protect and perfect our sustainable traditions for generations to come. Rebooting our island pride is imperative to preservation in an increasingly militarized Pacific Ocean still peopled by the ancestors of the indigenous.
Together as a unified public and private team of decision makers and industry players - Team Guam is shaping and pursuing the most detailed, expansive, and inclusive written plans and priorities in 11 years. With hard passenger arrival goals, predated benchmarks to get Guam back on the path towards two million annual visitors again, and a devotion to ecological and traditional sustainability, GVB and our partners are committed to center-piecing our deeply rooted culture. We are intent on revitalizing tourism around our uniquely CHamoru identity while nourishing its hue and flavor within the rainbow of Micronesian culture.
We do that by opening our airport and by encouraging travel not just to and from Guam but through Guam and onto other parts of Micronesia. The more air traffic touching down at our well-managed AB Won Pat International Airport, the likelier some of those arrivals will sooner or later find reasons to stick around for a visit, whether now or in the future. And the more Guam-based residents will be encouraged to travel to other islands within our own island’s immediate orbit.
At any rate, our airport will begin earning more landing fees. This expansion of runway activity is also likely to contribute to the development of more Guam-based regional aviation services that minister not only to our island but all of Micronesia.
The reasons we connect
At GVB we strive to show gratitude, respect, and warm welcome always, and we encourage Micronesian cultural associations to thrive right here in Guam. If the full spectrum of Micronesian cultures continues to blossom in Guam through visitation, exchange, residency, educational and career advancement, as well as business development, those factors will open more resources to and from greater Micronesia.
Guam has always been a proud part of Micronesia. That’s why GVB and its partners appreciatively host the Guam Micronesia Island Fair each year that we are able to do so. This is the bureau’s way of honoring the indigenous peoples, customs and cultures that inhabit the archipelagoes that bind us together through the shared history and culture that underpin magnificent Micronesia.
Intercultural exchange
The Guam Micronesia Island Fairgrounds have long been a gathering place to reconnect with family and old friends. For decades, modern aviation has empowered our island people to travel. Plenty of our guests this year flew in from their home islands on United Airlines to celebrate our Pacific cultures together as one.
In fact, many of us have grown up visiting each other among our homes and home islands and soaking up one another’s cultivations. Whether attending school together, growing up in the same neighborhoods, or visiting one another abroad, we, the people of Micronesia, were raised recognizing and valuing our similarities as well as those aspects that make each culture stand out.
This is the stuff that togetherness is made of, and GMIF is one important way that GVB helps preserve the interisland network first built by our outrigger-navigating forebears. Biba ONE Micronesia!
Thank you
GVB extends a warm dångkulu na si Yu’os ma’åse to our GMIF sponsors Triple J Auto Group, Hertz and Dollar Car Rental, Cycles Plus, Pepsi Guam Bottling and Stroll Guam. And we extol our honored guests including beach flag world champion Shogo Horie of Japan as well as musicians Jordan T and Parker Yobei.
We also thank our event partners: Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio, the Guam Fire Department, the Guam Police Department, our G4S Visitor Safety Officers, Tamuning-Tumon-Harmon Mayor Louise Rivera and Vice Mayor Albert Toves, the Department of Parks and Recreation, Department of Public Works, Department of Chamorro Affairs, JCB’s Red Guåhan Shuttle, Freedom Park, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) of Taiwan and all participating vendors.
GVB expresses its heartfelt gratitude to the Haggan Outrigger Canoe Club and our park and beach cleanup volunteers. Plus the Yapese Community of Guam, the several local island associations representing the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau and Republic of the Marshall Islands, the “I Gima Siha” traditional Guam dance houses, Master of CHamoru Dance Saina Eileen Meno, and the extensive Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands delegation for their participation through cultural display booths and dance and chant performances.
The CNMI Public School System, the CNMI Chamorro & Carolinian Language Heritage Studies program, and other CNMI organizations were proudly represented by 125 participating students and 40 adult chaperones from Saipan at this year’s GMIF.
A big shout out to the students of Saipan’s Francisco M. Sablan Middle School, Garapan Elementary School, Hopwood Middle School, Kagman Elementary School, Koblerville Elementary School, Marianas High School, Oleai Elementary School, and Tanapag Middle School for their heartwarming performances.
As Senior Destination Specialist for the Guam Visitors Bureau, Kraig Camacho oversees several of Destination Guam’s most iconic and unforgettable events. Send comments or questions to GVB at communityrelations@visitguam.org.