By NAN STAFF WRITER
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Oct. 18, 2019: A single Caribbean tourism authority shelled out over USD 7 million to a U.S. company in six months of 2018 to promote its tourism product, News Americas has found.
The Bermuda Tourism Authority paid MMGY Global, LLC, a Kansas, Missouri company, a jaw-dropping $7,424,065.22 for the six-month period ending May 31, 2018 according to the latest US Report of the Attorney General to the Congress of the United States on the Administration of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended, for the six months ending June 30, 2018.
The money, according to the DOJ’s latest FARA report, was to promote Bermuda’s tourism product through “strategic planning, account management, and administration for marketing, media and communications efforts.”
It was the largest reported amount paid by any Caribbean tourism agency in 2018.
MMGY on its website states it is “the world’s largest integrated marketing company specializing in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries.” It also states it “is a $60 million marketing communications and technology company with over 400 colleagues across 13 global offices.” MMGY Global is privately owned by Peninsula Capital Partners, members of the management team and individual investors including Jeff Fine, Don Montague and Peter Yesawich.
The second largest amount spent by a Caribbean tourism agency in a six-month period was $912,007.35 paid to New York ad agency, FCB New York, by the Jamaica Tourist Board.
