Visitor arrivals slightly up in 1st half

Re-entry of Korean travelers to the Northern Marianas pushed overall visitor arrival figures in the first half of the year by three percent to 257,800 from last year’s average of 250,900 tourists, government records disclosed.

A report on economic indicators compiled by the commerce department’s Central Statistics Division also revealed a modest drop in the arrival of Japanese tourists to Saipan during the first semester of the calendar year 2000.

The Quarterly Economic Review, which quotes figures submitted by the Marianas Visitors Authority, indicated a 0.5 percent decline in the number of visitors from the CNMI’s largest tourism market to 190,700 from 191,750 in 1999.

Korean travelers manifested a strong comeback to the Northern Marianas during the January-June 2000 period, bringing high hopes of eventual recovery to the islands’ ailing billion-dollar tourism industry.

The number of tourists from South Korea jumped by close to 27 percent in the same period to 32,400 from the year ago’s average of 25,600, according to the Quarterly Economic Review.

Arrivals from the continental United States and Guam fell seven percent to 23,000 in the first six months of the calendar year from 24,650 during the same period in 1999, according to official government records.

However, overall growth in visitor arrivals to the Northern Marianas failed to correspondingly fill government coffers as the CNMI government reports a record-low in the amount of revenues collected from hotel occupancy taxes since 1996.

Government records disclosed hotel occupancy taxes averaged $2.8 million in the first half of the financial year 2000, which translates into about six percent fall from the year ago’s semestral average of $3 million.

Figures from the finance department revealed hotel occupancy taxes contributed $6 million into the overall revenues generated by the CNMI government in Fiscal Year 1999.

A review of official government figures will show that the first half of FY 2000 was the first time since the financial year 1996 when semestral hotel occupancy revenues dipped below the $3 million-mark.

In 1996, per semester average amounted $4.95 million, or when more than 700,000 tourists visited the Northern Marianas for the whole year, helping hotels achieve an occupancy rate of 85.6 percent.

While the rate suffered a modest fall in 1997, dropping to 81.4 percent, hotel occupancy revenues soared $10.8 million or an average of about $5.4 million per six-month period.

The figure fell to a per semester average of $3.85 million, or $7.7 million for the entire 1998, when the Northern Marianas started feeling the pinch of financial upheavals in major Asian countries like Japan and Korea.

During the same year, visitor arrivals dropped by close to 30 percent to about 490,200 from the previous year’s 694,900 tourists. Arrival statistics slightly improved in 1999, reaching 501,800 travelers to the Northern Marianas.

Hotel occupancy rate fell seven percent to 58.9 percent in the second quarter of 2000, dampening moods brought about by the apparent growth manifested by the Northern Marianas tourism industry in the first three months of the year.