Teno lobbies for Korean Air

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio has asked Korea’s Ministry of Construction and Transportation to grant the request of Korean Airlines to provide a Seoul-Saipan direct service to boost traffic and revive the CNMI’s ailing tourism economy.

Visitor arrivals from Korea drastically declined after the pullout of Korean Air in August 1997 due to the tragic crash on nearby island Guam and the plunge of the Korean economy amid Asia’s financial crisis.

While Asiana Airlines is currently providing Seoul-Saipan direct flights six times a week, Tenorio said he believes that the CNMI must be serviced by an additional carrier so that the travel demands can be met and the Northern Marianas can regain its lost market share.

“With the recent strong growth of the Korean economy, we are optimistic that our Commonwealth will once again regain the Pre-International Monetary Fund arrivals,” he wrote to Lee in backing the airline’s application to fly directly from Korea to Saipan.

Korea is CNMI’s second biggest source of tourists. Korean Air used to ferry an average of 12,000 passengers a month.

Since early this year, there has been a steady increase in the number of visitor arrivals from Korea primarily due to the improvement in the Korean economy.

Korean Air board chairman Yang Ho Cho and a number of the company’s executives held a brief visit to the Northern Marianas early this year to inspect a number of hotels on the island. Yang expressed interest in resuming Korean Air service before the end of the year.

The Marianas Visitors Authority has been eyeing the honeymoon market in Korea which is projected to increase continuously as some 400,000 couples are expected to get married this year. Many are expecting the CNMI to get a bigger share of the honeymoon market since the crash in neighboring island Guam is still fresh in the minds of many Koreans.

Asiana Airlines’ decision to increase the frequency of flights to the Northern Marianas is a welcome relief to the shrinking tourism market. The airline executives raised the possibility of providing charter flights from Pusan to Saipan because of the growing honeymoon market there.

Based on the visitor arrivals record of MVA, the Korean market started showing some signs of recovery in December 1998, and passenger demand has jumped by more than 70 percent for the past months of this year.

MVA officials have traveled to Korea where they met with the biggest tour operators early this year to seek assistance in marketing the CNMI.

Some $164,000 has been set aside by MVA to promote the islands in Korea.