NMI eyes bigger share of HK, Taiwan visitors

Majority of Hong Kong and Taiwan tourists are still going to Guam, despite Continental Micronesia’s move to reroute flights from both destinations to Guam by adding a stop on Saipan.

According to a December 2004 load factors report issued by the Marianas Visitors Authority, tourists visiting the Northern Marianas occupied only 28.3 percent of seats available on Continental’s Hong Kong-Saipan-Guam service.

Further, only 23.3 percent of the seats on the Taiwan-Saipan-Guam flights were filled by CNMI visitors.

The rest of the passengers on both flights travel to Guam, MVA marketing manager Wayne Pangelinan said in an interview.

“We have just started with this flights, but we’re doing our best to increase our share of the markets,” said Pangelinan.

He reported that since the introduction of the flights in November 2004, MVA has hosted various familiarization tours for travel agents and media representatives from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Two more groups will be coming next month, he said.

In addition, MVA is teaming up with travel agents and Continental itself for placement of advertisements promoting the Northern Marianas.

MVA data showed that the Northern Marianas received 652 visitors from Taiwan during the first two months of the direct flights, a 477-percent increase from the Taiwan arrivals between November and December 2003.

From Hong Kong, arrivals reached 685 visitors between November and December 2004, an 83-percent growth as compared with the same period in 2003.

Continental’s Taiwan flights provide 1,395 seats to Saipan per month, while the Hong Kong flights offer 1,240 seats.

MVA also reported that airlines servicing the Japan-Saipan route flew 74 percent full last month, an improvement from the 64-percent load factor for December 2003. But this apparently results from the 17-percent decline in the number of available seats from Japan.

Asiana Airlines, the only carrier flying the Korea-Saipan route, had a load factor of 83.7 percent for December 2004.

Charter flights from China also posted a drop in load factor—from 94.8 percent in December 2003 to 74.9 percent last month. The number of seats available for Chinese tourists increased to 4,005 last month, more than double the number in December 2003.