Visitor arrivals saw flat growth in March

Despite a 27 percent decline in tourists from its second biggest market — Korea, figures from the Marianas Visitors Authority indicated that CNMI visitor arrivals for the month of March are comparable to numbers registered in the same period last year.

MVA records showed a total of 44,388 tourists came to the Commonwealth last month. In March of 2000, the CNMI welcomed 44,355 visitors for an increase of a minuscule .07 percent in visitor arrivals between periods.

The Japanese market tallied the biggest number of visitor arrivals to the CNMI with a total of 35,184 followed by Korea and the United States, with 3,491 and 1,737 tourists respectively.

Individually, the Japanese market registered a modest three percent rise in visitor arrivals in March. This was primarily due to the resumption of Continental Airline’s direct flight from Osaka, Japan which began on February 1.

The Osaka-Saipan route brought in an additional 1,452 Japanese passengers to the scenic and sun-kissed beaches of the CNMI. In addition, March also saw six charter flights from Japan Airlines which somewhat compensated for the four percent decline in direct flight from the country.

MVA’s second-biggest market, Korea, was a totally different story. The 27 percent fall in visitor arrivals from the Land of the Morning Calm, was attributed to March, like February, being a slow month for travel in the Korean calendar, according to the MVA.

Koreans generally do not find February-March period as a especially good time to travel for vacations. For honeymooners, the CNMI is seen as a saturated destination, being already well known in the country, and as a result newly weds have increasingly demanded for newer resorts.

Moreover, MVA cited that the opening of the Inchon Airport in Korea has increased competition from other destinations such as Hong Kong. For instance, Korean Airlines will increase flights to Hong Kong from the current daily flights and add new overnight tour packages to Hong Kong at lower prices.

Add to that, tour packages in the country were offered at bargain-basement prices and were naturally to Southeast Asian destinations.

MVA also attributed the decrease in visitor arrivals from Korea to the depreciation of the country’s currency, the won, which has affected travel demand to the CNMI.

It is also important to note that visitor arrivals from Taiwan and China continued their surprising increase, with the two heirs of the Middle Kingdom, recording 350 percent and 451 percent rise in their nationalities visiting the CNMI, respectively.

Visitor arrivals from the US and Guam went down 26 percent and two percent, respectively.