Japan arrivals up, Korea down

The CNMI’s tourism industry is seeing a slow but steady recovery after a recent slump, with this July showing a 4.3 percent increase in traveler arrivals over last year’s, including a spike in Japanese visitors. Yet for the first time in 2008, Korean tourism has dropped, the Marianas Visitors Authority reported Saturday.

The decline in Korean tourism, down 6 percent from 10,901 visitors in July 2007 to 10,208 this past month, comes as Asiana Airlines is poised to boost its service to the CNMI.

In a statement Saturday, MVA attributed the drop to “unstable” conditions and “signs of stagnation” in the Korean economy, pointing to a trend of low consumer spending there that has taken its toll on the travel industry.

“As the consumer sentiment on household spending has been restricted, Koreans are not actively planning for overseas trips,” the statement said.

Moreover, major increases in the price of fuel have added to the cost of traveling, MVA said. “The main reason for decline in outbound travel is the increase in the fuel surcharge. For example, a family of four members now has to pay about $1,000 for the fuel surcharge and tax,” it said.

However, Japanese tourism saw a 22 percent jump in July over the same month last year. There were 19,012 Japanese visitors last month compared to 15,529 during the same period in 2007. MVA says this is the second highest total of Japanese travelers to reach the CNMI in fiscal year 2008. The top month for Japanese tourism remains January with 20,078 arrivals. MVA credited Northwest Airlines’ recent boost in services to the CNMI from Tokyo for the jump. Northwest brought in an additional 298 daily seats from the Japan market.

“The increase in total visitor arrivals is very encouraging for the CNMI tourism industry,” said MVA managing director Perry Tenorio. “We are working closely with our travel partners to assure that we can continue to grow visitor arrivals to the CNMI.”

Meanwhile, Russian tourism continued to see significant gains in July, up 168 percent over last year, though the total number of Russians visiting the CNMI last month remained relatively low at 787. Last year, the CNMI hosted 294 visitors from Russia.

Philippine tourism saw a major drop, however, down to 171 arrivals in July compared to the 516 seen in the same month last year. MVA noted that since the opening of a testing center in the Philippines for nursing certifications, those figures have rapidly declined. Continental Airlines’ cancellation of direct Manila-to-Saipan flights has contributed to this market’s demise.

And Chinese tourism, MVA added, is also down 57 percent in July due to a drop in charter flights. Chinese visitors went from 4,107 in 2007 to 1,749 this year.

“In July 2007, there were charter flights from Shanghai and Guangzhou. For this year, we only had charter flights from Guangzhou,” MVA said.