Palacios stands pat on pivot

Gov. Arnold I. Palacios reiterated his previous decision and said Monday that he has not changed his position to pivot the CNMI away from its reliance on the Chinese tourism market.

“My current position is still the same. We cannot continue to be reliant [on the Chinese tourism market]. If they come, that’s great,” said Palacios during a news briefing at the Office of the Governor.

Palacios talked about his position about the Chinese tourism market on the heels of the decision of China’s National Tourism Administration last week to reinstate the CNMI on its Approved Destination status list, allowing package tours and charter flights to the destination once again.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, China was the second top source market for the CNMI, with South Korea in first place.

Palacios is glad the Chinese government is now allowing group tours to the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, the CNMI and other countries, but he said everyone will still have to remember that there is still a sensitivity factor to the locations of Guam and Tinian, where major military facility infrastructures are being built.

With the Chinese government now slowly opening up its outbound travel with more approved destinations for its tourists, the CNMI still can’t afford to rely on that market too much.

“Again, we can’t put all our eggs in that market,” said Palacios, adding that he is not saying that Chinese tourism needs to stop.

At the end of the day, he said, this is a sensitive situation as the geopolitical climate right now is “very sensitive.”

Obviously, he said, the U.S. and other countries probably have a different vetting process.

Palacios said Chinese tourists can still come to the CNMI via a visa waiver process, but when they go on to, say California, they will have to go through a visa process.

“So the vetting process is different,” he said.

The governor said the federal government can “pull the plug” on the Chinese tourism market at any given time, so the CNMI needs to be mindful of that.

“And so to those folks that bring in the tourists, make sure that they’re accounted for when they come in and are accounted for when they leave,” he said.

The governor pointed out that there have been news about overstaying Chinese tourists on Saipan and overstaying CWs from the Commonwealth who make their way to Guam illegally.

“I’m not sure what the federal government is going to do with that. So there’s a sensitivity. We cannot discount that and bury your head in the sand and say, ‘Well, everything’s great,’” Palacios said.

Last March, Palacios wrote a letter to Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, expressing that his administration is committed to advancing U.S. national interests in the Pacific region, which includes pivoting away from the CNMI’s reliance on its Chinese tourism market.

According to the Marianas Visitors Authority, before COVID-19, as many as 3 million Chinese travelers visited the U.S. annually, contributing more than $30 billion to the U.S. economy.

Arnold I. Palacios