Japanese tourist arrivals fall 29%

Tourist arrivals from Japan further slid down registering a 29-percent drop in November, a month after Japan Airlines had totally terminated its flights to the CNMI.

Statistics from the Marianas Visitors Authority showed there were only 21,602 Japanese who visited the Commonwealth last month.

During the same month last year, there were 30,454 Japanese visitors.

Authorities earlier projected that tourist arrivals from Japan would dramatically drop in view of JAL’s pullout from the CNMI on Oct. 4.

JAL, which provided direct flights to Saipan from Tokyo and Osaka, used to bring some 155,000 passengers from Japan a year.

After its pullout on Oct. 4, the airline made a few special direct flights throughout the month of October.

Meantime, local authorities recently disclosed that JAL will once again operate charter flights for the holidays this month.

JAL will reportedly provide charter flights to Saipan from Kansai, Niigata, and Nagoya.

The JAL charter flights are reportedly set on Dec. 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17, and 31.

These flights are expected to bring in over 1,000 tourists.

Authorities also said that Omni Airlines will provide charter flights from Haneda and Fukuoka, as well as Kansai.

Meantime, MVA arrivals statistics for November 2005 showed that the CNMI hosted 35,008 tourists during the period.

This reflects a 20.24-percent decline compared to the same month last year, which saw 43,890 tourists.

Meantime, China arrivals showed a 17-percent increase in November 2005, translating to 3,135 tourists.

Taiwan, however, posted a 95-percent decline compared to Nov. 2004.

This huge drop was caused primarily by the cancellation of the Continental Airlines’ direct flight to Taiwan effective Nov. 1, 2005.

MVA said there were only 15 visitors from Taiwan last month.

During the same period last year, there were 329 Taiwanese visitors.

Hong Kong, meantime, suffered a 73-percent decline, owing to the dropping of Saipan from Continental’s Hong Kong route effective Nov. 7.

Visitors from Hong Kong last month totaled 96. During the same month last year, there were 355 tourists originating from Hong Kong.

Meantime, tourist arrivals from the Philippines also went down to 205 or 57 percent compared to 478 visitors posted in Nov. 2004.

Authorities earlier said this decline maybe due to the fact that Filipino nurses can now take NCLEX in Hong Kong, a much cheaper route from Manila.

Filipino nurses used to come to the CNMI to take the exam.

The number of visitors from the mainland U.S. was also down last month by 58 percent, or a total of 1,127.

Meanwhile, MVA data showed a positive growth in tourist arrivals from Korea.

From 4,723 in November 2004, Korean visitors increased to 6,521 in November this year.

Guam visitors also rose by 10 percent during the month.

There were 1,903 visitors from Guam in November this year.