Probably one of Guam’s most popular dive spot, the Blue Hole was removed from a list of destinations around the world which were competing to be elected as one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the World, an international competition held by the New7Wonders Foundation.

The reason stated for the delisting of the Blue Hole from the competition was because the Guam Visitors Bureau chose not to submit paperwork as a committee to support it as a nominee in the competition.  Guam Visitors Bureau President, Gerry Perez stated the reason GVB decided not to submit the paperwork was because they questioned the validity of the New7Wonders Foundation and the competition.  There was concern about the foundation and competition’s  for-profit goals, and the fact that it was not connected to UNSECO which has been documenting significant places around the world for almost 3 decades.

It’s possible that Guam could have lost a large sum of tourism revenue from the positive press the island could have received by being part of the competition.  The competition has been covered by many news and media outlets around the world including USA Today, Newsweek, Time Magazine, and Fox News just to name a few.  Any amount of press and worldwide attention which required little or no cost in a slumping economy would have been beneficial for the island in our opinion, but I guess we’ll really never know how much the worldwide attention would have benefited Guam now.

So do you think GVB made a mistake or did the right thing by not supporting the Blue Hole as a nominee in the New7Wonders competition?

Topics: blue hole, blue hole guam, guam dive, guam dive spot, guam diving, guam visitors bureau, gvb, new7wonders, new7wonders competition