{"id":212386,"date":"2015-10-14T06:06:41","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T20:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=212386"},"modified":"2015-10-14T06:06:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T20:06:41","slug":"we-cannot-afford-to-lose-the-japan-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/we-cannot-afford-to-lose-the-japan-market\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We cannot afford to lose the Japan market\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CNMI needs to focus and pay close attention to the Japan tourism market, according to Marianas Visitors Authority board member Jerry Tan, who believes the Commonwealth cannot afford to lose this market, which started the CNMI\u2019s tourism industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really cannot afford to allow the Japan market to continue to decline,\u201d Tan said. \u201cWe enjoy the growth from Korea and China and we want them, we want to see them continue their growth but I think everyone must pay close attention to the Japan market because we now have an opportunity to have a three-market strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MVA<\/a>
MVA board member and Tan Holdings president Jerry Tan speaks of the need to focus on the Japan market in the tourism industry as the CNMI cannot afford to lose it. (Frauleine S. Villanueva)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tan said a balanced market mix or market diversification is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very important for all destinations to strive for a more balanced market mix. And we have that opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Looking back at 2005, Tan pointed out that having one market alone is not good.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor 30 years, we relied on one market. And what happened in 2005? Japan Airlines decided to go out from our market, and they were providing majority of the seats. One decision, a corporate decision from JAL, overnight turned our entire community upside down. And we didn\u2019t have a second market or third market to look at that time,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n

The CNMI enjoyed its peak of Japanese visitors in 1997 with 450,000 tourists from that country alone. Almost 20 years later, the CNMI is experiencing an 87-percent decline in the Japan market.<\/p>\n

Tan said he doesn\u2019t believe that it\u2019s because of the decline in Japan\u2019s economy. He pointed out that the Japanese are still travelling\u2014\u201cbut not to our islands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Japanese are still travelling, 30 minutes away from us,\u201d Tan said, citing Japanese arrival numbers in Guam and other Pacific islands.<\/p>\n

From 42 percent in 2011, the Japan market is now down to 19 percent of the tourism industry as it continues to decline every year. Tan said they are looking at Japanese tourists to go below 100,000 for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at 2005, a really bad nightmare for us, but maybe in the end we come out stronger if we pursue other market aggressively,\u201d Tan said. \u201c[But] we cannot afford to lose the Japan market.\u201d<\/p>\n

To engage more tourists, as well as entice returning or repeat tourists, Tan said it is important to add features as well as \u201cquality\u201d to the islands\u2019 facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really don\u2019t have anything new to speak of. That\u2019s the challenge we face whenever we go to the market convention because we have nothing new. That\u2019s something we really need to work hard on,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed out that \u201csustainable development\u201d must be looked at more versus \u201cpotential overdevelopment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that airline partners must also be focused on.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur biggest struggle, since we lost Japan Airlines, is we cannot find the seat capacity that we need. We need to work much harder to encourage and hope that we will see more airlines interested. Low cost carriers exist in Japan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI needs to focus and pay close attention to the Japan tourism market, according…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[169,26,2327,603],"class_list":["post-212386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-china","tag-cnmi","tag-japan-airlines","tag-jerry-tan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212386","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}