Miss Heilala, a real gem [1]
Sunday, December 5, 2010 - 20:11. Updated on Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - 10:06.
Editor,
I am based in Papua New Guinea now and the country recently hosted the Miss South Pacific Pageant 2010.
Unsurprisingly, Tonga's candidate to this event, Mafi Tu'inukuafe was immaculate. She was a real gem for the event and surprised many of the audience with her character, charm, wit and beauty. This isn't unusual for Tonga; we have been blessed with many beauties both local and overseas of Tongan heritage. Many have surpassed our expectations of them (I don't say that lightly) and Mafi was certainly one who surpassed mine.
It is a real encouragement to see a person of her youth do so well on an international stage and it is a great representation of our Kingdom's educational standards and the natural beauty that Tongan women are well known for - we had a lady who epitomised beauty and brains.
The unfortunate part to this event is what I perceive to be a real lack of government support to these events - both to the contestants involved, their entourage and the notion of a missed opportunity to sell Tonga to a range of potential investors.
PNG is not a cheap place but the ability to expose our nation to some of the Pacific and the world's largest investors was a real missed opportunity. PNG is a real adventure and holds many great assets - minerals, natural resources and an investment community that seek opportunity. I class it as a wild west frontier and whilst it is not everyone's ideal place, it certainly is an interesting ride for me.
Mafi was outstanding and really branded the country - she is known in PNG as the lovely Miss Tonga and was definitely a very popular candidate, not only due to her youth (she was the youngest contestant) but also due to her charm and wit. I wish we had more people like her able to sell our Kingdom's goodness - it would really set a standard of marketing for us that would attract any smart and able investor.
Comparatively, äs a result of the Samoan representation to this event - the Miss Samoa was also great, the Deputy Prime Minister (who I regard as the best Pacific presenter ever) and Chairman of the Miss South Pacific Committee, invited a PNG delegation to visit Samoa's shores; there is now a small delegation that will be visiting Samoa to look at Tourist and Financial Services opportunities in January 2011. He presented to the same group at a Pacific Investment conference in Sydney during August that attracted a lot of interest. Unfortunately, Tonga at a government and business community level was lacking in any sort of representation.
This Papua New Guinean delegation that will visit Samoa have recently organised an investment of TOP$200m worth of projects in Fiji and TOP$300m in the Solomon Islands. Due to the great presentation by DPM Misa Telefoni Retzlaff of Samoa, those numbers will more than likely be invested over the next 2-5 years by PNG businessmen into Samoa.
For Tonga to get to that stage, it needs to support those who can ably bring out the goodness of our Kingdom, we are on a level whereby we compete in an international arena - we need to play to our strengths and that is ably assisting our great people to complete that task.
I hope people's representatives like Sitiveni Halapua and Misi Sika who I both know, can add some jazz to the Kingdom's branding and thought on how to manage our Tourism outlook.
Others like Suliana Afeaki, Sia Tonga, Liz Sullivan, Linny Folau, Josephine Latu, Mona Palu and Ebonnie Fifita (sorry guys, I have only listed a bunch of good woman in our Kingdom right now . . .) who I know have a bunch of great ideas for Tonga and would make ideal representatives of the Kingdom. They would know and utilise our strengths of beauty, culture and intelligence, especially past and present Miss Tonga's who are all culturally sensitive, intelligent and beautiful women - Tessie Tolutau, Fiona Makisi, Paea Williams and Mafi Tu'inukuafe - and all those before them. There is nothing that attracts an investor more than an opportunity to invest in a beautiful place with beautiful people and a whole lot of charm and wit.
I hope in future we can see the real potential in our youth, embrace change in ideas and allocate the right resources to the marketing/creative part of our identity that would showcase our culture to a global audience.
How to achieve that? More resources to the right tasks and events - the Miss Heilala week, the Miss South Pacific Pageants showcase our country to a great extent? Support these events and the contestants wholeheartedly - make it attractive and compensate the girls for competing, don't rely on the notion of love for the country, their want to participate is evidence of that, give them the extra incentive that treats them like stars so we bring the best people to represent us? This applies to our national sports stars - the 'Ikale Tahi especially - give them that added extra to feel special and recognised for their achievements. Less time and money on junkets for non-return events and more on seeking commercial opportunities with ideal representation of Tonga? Getting the right people in the right places?
Identifying and then accepting that we have to change our perceptions in Tonga, especially at the Government level on the way that we have looked at these events and aim to be smarter about how to compete and represent our Kingdom. I sure hope our new government can drive that throughout.
Lastly I just want to say thanks to Mafi Tu'inukuafe, if ever Tonga needed someone to boost their image at a time like this, she was a godsend and she made me even prouder to be a Tongan in Papua New Guinea. I just hope her good efforts for future Miss Tongas and Tongans in general will not be wasted.
Yours Sincerely
John Paul Chapman
johnpaulchapman [at] gmail [dot] com