Gov. Arnold I. Palacios stands firm in his plans to pivot away from the China tourism market amidst ongoing geopolitical tensions and developing military tourism in its place. <\/p>\n
In an interview with Palacios last week, he confirmed that his administration has begun developing military tourism and now is a better time than ever, given the recent relocation of over 5,000 military personnel from Japan to Guam. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just the start. We\u2019ve been talking with Joint Region Marianas, the Department of Defense, and we\u2019ve had discussions on ways to start capitalizing on [a military tourism] market and start trying to develop that market. Guam now has a really active military market and, with the transfer of the Japan base to Guam, you\u2019re talking of close to 10,000 to 50,000 people. That\u2019s an opportunity for us to take a look into that market. Rota is very close by. Now let\u2019s work on making our islands a getaway for these personnel [in] Guam. We have to start helping ourselves to that market and start developing that market,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
If the CNMI succeeds in developing military tourism, Palacios said the administration may be open to incentivizing flights from Guam to Saipan. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to develop that market for [our airline partners] before we can incentivize them to give us a better deal. So we need to help show that we are helping create that market,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
According to Saipan Tribune archives, Daniel Aquino, who is the governor\u2019s special assistant for military affairs, said the administration has already kicked into gear its plans to tap into military spending in the CNMI through tourism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe military is always interested in exploring, diving, golfing, anything leisurely and recreational for families. That\u2019s what they\u2019re looking at. We\u2019re trying to get them to visit here from Guam. We\u2019re currently actively pursuing this,\u201d said Aquino.<\/p>\n
Aquino said the Commonwealth Bureau of Military Affairs has already started establishing partnerships in preparation for this new industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the governor and lieutenant governor\u2019s part, we\u2019re moving toward the direction of military [tourism] as we pivot away from our China market. We\u2019re trying to encourage [Joint Region Marianas] to conduct more military training exercises here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we move forward, we\u2019ve partnered with the Marianas Visitors Authority to create staycation packages [for military personnel]. It\u2019s currently in the preliminary stages. We\u2019re also working with the Saipan Chamber of Commerce on this,\u201d Aquino added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios stands firm in his plans to pivot away from the China…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":388723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[200],"class_list":["post-388722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388722","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}