Some of the top executives of the largest tour operators in China recently visited Saipan on a \u201cfamiliarization tour\u201d organized by DFS, which the operates duty free shop, T Galleria.<\/p>\n
Marian Aldan-Pierce, president of DFS Saipan Ltd., said the VIPS from the tour operators arrived Friday and were given a tour of the temporary casino at T Galleria.<\/p>\n
Aldan-Pierce said the group will stay for two nights and will also be given a tour of other activities that Saipan can offer. The group leaves today.<\/p>\n
She said the \u201cfamiliarization tour\u201d is expected to give the operators a glimpse of what Saipan can offer when it comes to tourism.<\/p>\n
Increasing arrivals<\/strong> \u201cWe are trying to increase Saipan PRC cycle arrivals. This year, we see cycle arrival to be 220,000. By next year, we see 260,000 to 280,000. This is on a yearly basis,\u201d Zhou said.<\/p>\n He said China\u2019s tourist arrivals is now \u201calmost the same as Korea, but will be higher in two to three years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make Saipan a preferred destination. Saipan is becoming well-known, but the key challenge is still room capacity,\u201d Zhou said.<\/p>\n The executive said more charter flights are also being planned.<\/p>\n Currently, 10 charter flights from China fly to Saipan every week.<\/p>\n \u201cMore charters are coming in next year, three more charter flights from different cities,\u201d Zhou said.<\/p>\n He added that the casino is just one of the features that Chinese tourists are looking for, and for many, the natural beauty of Saipan is its biggest draw.<\/p>\n Aside from its natural beauty, one key advantage of Saipan, according to Zhou, is its proximity to the mainland. Some Chinese cities are only four hours away from Saipan.<\/p>\n Best Sunshine<\/strong> Matthew Harkness, BSI chief operating officer, said the having the tour groups come over \u201cmeans a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is good for Saipan is good for Best Sunshine. These operators are very important to the economy of Saipan. This means a lot to us, to give them an idea of what we have now, and an opportunity to show what we are building right across the street,\u201d Harkness said.<\/p>\n He added that the visitors seem \u201creally happy\u201d and \u201cappreciative\u201d and \u201csomewhat surprised\u201d from what they saw, particularly some new amenities that Saipan now has.<\/p>\n Harkness said BSI is targeting not just China but also other source markets such as Korea and Japan, which will always be important markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of the top executives of the largest tour operators in China recently visited Saipan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1311,169,300,62],"class_list":["post-209397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-bsi","tag-china","tag-dfs","tag-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRichard Zhou, vice president of global PRC travel industry marketing, said the purpose of inviting the big tour operators is to increase tourist arrivals on Saipan.<\/p>\n
\nImmediately after arriving, the tour groups met with officials of DFS and Best Sunshine International Ltd.<\/p>\n