DRIED mango maker Profood International Corp., owned by Cebuano businessman Justin Uy, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Seoul-based Iconix Entertainment to bring the country’s first-ever Pororo-inspired indoor themed park to Cebu.

Pororo the Little Penguin is a Korean-animated character.

According to Uy, the collaboration was meant to boost the marketing of his food and hospitality businesses.

Aside from Profood which sells processed fruits, Uy also owns the JPark Island Resort & Waterpark on Mactan Island.

“This MOU, for sure, would help especially Profood. Because Profood exports to more than 50 countries worldwide and we want to have some new image. A new image is like this iconic, quite very popular now,” Uy said.

The Pororo-inspired themed park and rooms opened Friday, Sept. 20, 2019 at Jpark Island.

“In fact, if you go to the airport in Incheon, you’ll see seven of their parks inside the airport. More or less, if you’re talking about Koreans, they’re all over the world. So even those who have traveled abroad know about Pororo so this will really help us in marketing especially to the millennials and to the children,” Uy said.

Uy said he wanted to increase JPark’s presence in the global market, while it continues to attract Koreans and Japanese as its top tourist markets.

“As a whole, this will strengthen our control in the Korean market as well as the Japanese market,” the businessman said.

“It’s another way in giving us strength in marketing. For JPark, since we are a family hotel, because we have this, nobody can beat us. This will be something that the children will be very happy and it is a very good image for us and we’re so proud we’re the first one in the Philippines to have them here,” he added.

Choi Jong-Il, Iconix’s president and chief executive, said the partnership opened opportunities for both firms to keep up with increased competition in food and creative industries.

“Today’s MOU is a great opportunity for mutual development of Profood International Corp. and Iconix. Profood expanded and ventured into resort business through JPark Island and met Pororo Park which is under Iconix. So now it’s all connected from food, resort, character, and to contents,” he said.

JPark is also set to launch 20 Pororo-themed rooms to suit every family that plans to stay in the hotel. (JOB)