Japan market picks up after lifting of COVID restrictions

From over the Saipan Channel and looking north toward Garapan and Mt. Tapochau, the western portion of Saipan enjoys a sunny Sunday morning as seen from an inbound airline flight. (MARK FARMER)

The CNMI’s Japan market has been slow to pick up steam since its reopening last year, mainly because of COVID-19 restrictions that were in place. However, with those restrictions now completely lifted, the Marianas Visitors Authority says it has already seen an increase in bookings to the CNMI.

In an interview with MVA managing director Chris Concepcion, he said the Japanese government removed all COVID-19 restrictions in May, and MVA has since been seeing Japanese visitor arrivals pick up.

“We want to make sure that we sustain that momentum going forward so we have a diversified portfolio,” he said. “The load factors are getting better monthly.”

In May, the CNMI saw a spike in visitor arrivals from Japan, Concepcion said, making it the second-best arrival month for the Japan market since COVID-19.

“We have also seen bookings for June pick up into July and we hope and expect that all our marketing projects going in Japan will help continue that momentum,” he said.

Concepcion said that that United Airlines, which currently has a contract with the CNMI to charter weekly flights between Saipan and Narita, have reported load factors of around 45% to 55% in the past few months. That changed in June, with load factor being around 70%, which he says just proves that the market is picking back up.

“When they first opened, they anticipated much lower load factors but they are doing way better than expected, according to United. We’re hoping now that [with] COVID restrictions lifted, we’ll see a much healthier load factor,” he said.

Concepcion said MVA expects the market to continue to improve these next few months as August is usually high travel season for the Japan market.

“With that said, the outbound numbers from the Japan market is still not where we want them to be, even for destinations like Hawaii and Guam, they’re down. But it’s picking up slowly and we just have to maintain that momentum,” he said.

MVA is even more hopeful that the Japan market’s rising momentum will only continue, now that United and MVA have an understanding that United will continue flying its Narita-Saipan route until after the expiration of their contract in December.

“Our current contract with United for our Japan-Saipan flights is set to end in December. They haven’t published anything about extending beyond Dec. 31, 2023, but we have an understanding that they will be continuing those flights. We’re just waiting for them to load the fares, publish the schedules, and from there we will know more,” Concepcion said.

The MVA managing director said it is still urgent that the CNMI do what it can to boost arrivals from the Japan market at this point because, aside from Japan, the CNMI only has one other market left which is Korea.

“What we want to convey is that there is an urgent need for us to revive the industry and we cannot be a ‘one-market’ destination. Diversification in our markets is critical so that if one market collapses, we can rely on other markets. Today, the Korea market makes up a majority of our arrivals, which is good. However, we need to build up other markets so that we spread out the risk. The next most viable market is Japan. There is an urgent need on our part to boost arrivals from this market,” Concepcion said.

Meanwhile, in an interview with acting MVA board chair Gloria Cavanagh, she said the lifting of restrictions is good news for the CNMI because, as a family destination, families with children may now travel again.

“We’ve always catered to families since the beginning for all our different markets. We are a family destination. The lifting of restrictions in Japan last May is very important because that means that children can now travel. So we see the increase, especially this summer, because this is usually when families travel. We are hoping, now that the restrictions are gone and now that domestic travel subsidies that Japan was previously offering airlines has gone down and will conclude come July, hopefully we will see the flights coming in at a healthy load factor from now on,” she said.