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Tourism summit to examine decline in Japanese travelers
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Posted on Mar 28 2005
Tourism industry leaders will gather for a summit at Aqua Resort Club today to address the declining visitor arrivals from the Northern Marianas primary tourism market—Japan.
The Marianas Visitors Authority is scheduled to make two presentations at the meeting: one on the overall status of the CNMI’s tourism industry and the other on recent developments concerning the Japanese market.
These include a look at the latest arrival statistics, MVA’s marketing efforts, and advertising budget.
“It’s basically a reality check on where we’re at and what we need to do,” MVA vice chair Marian Aldan Pierce said during a special board meeting yesterday.
The Tourism Summit, which will be held from 9am to 1pm in Aqua Resort’s Taga Conference Room, was organized amid concerns over the recent moves by airlines to cease flight operations from Japan and to downsize aircraft servicing the Japan-Saipan route.
MVA earlier reported that seat capacity from Tokyo alone decreased by 28 percent last month, as compared with February 2004.
Japan Airlines changed its aircraft from 747 to DC-10 on the daily flights from Tokyo to Saipan. Northwest Airlines continues to use a 747 aircraft for its flights from Tokyo but with a different seat configuration from 430 seats to 350 seats.
The number of seats from Nagoya also experienced a reduction of 48 percent, compared to the same month the previous year. The number of daily flights from this region was cut from two flights to one flight, when Continental Airlines terminated direct flights from Nagoya to Saipan in April 2004.
As a result, arrivals from Japan posted a double-digit decline figure last month, reaching only 30,040 visitors—a 15-percent drop as compared with the same month last year.
To woo airlines to increase service from Japan, Gov. Juan N. Babauta led a delegation of government and private tourism officials to Tokyo last Feb. 21.
A similar visit to the airline companies is being scheduled for next month.
