{"id":389334,"date":"2023-04-12T06:04:36","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T20:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=389334"},"modified":"2023-04-12T06:04:36","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T20:04:36","slug":"palacios-cavanagh-optimistic-about-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/palacios-cavanagh-optimistic-about-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Palacios, Cavanagh optimistic about Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios talks about his recent trip to Japan as acting Marianas Visitors Authority board chair Gloria Cavanagh, right, and acting MVA managing director Judy Torres listen during a news briefing at the Governor\u2019s Office conference room yesterday afternoon. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and acting Marianas Visitors Authority board chair Gloria Cavanagh are optimistic that the CNMI will get more outbound travelers from Japan as the country will soon designate COVID-19 as similar to influenza come May 8 this year.<\/p>\n

In a news briefing yesterday afternoon in the governor\u2019s conference room, Palacios and Cavanagh also described their recent four-day trip to Japan as \u201cvery fruitful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very optimistic that things are [going to] start improving for the Commonwealth. Its [going to] take a little while because Japan is just starting to restart their outbound travel,\u201d Palacios said.<\/p>\n

Cavanagh said the whole trip was very fruitful and, with the promotions that the MVA is doing now and with three direct United Airlines flights per week, the bookings are actually doing great now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are already seeing the fruits of our labor of this promotion,\u201d Cavanagh said. \u201cIt was a busy trip. We hope there will be major results come out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palacios said they went to Japan to talk with tourism partners, from the airlines to major travel agencies, as well as with government officials that are critically important and play major roles in trade, tourism, and commerce.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an effort to kind of try to jumpstart the Japan market,\u201d Palacios said.<\/p>\n

The governor said that Japanese arrivals were fairly low even before the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to other markets, hence the need for the Marianas to aggressively market the destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went ahead and took four days of extensive meetings. We met with the U.S. Embassy. The embassy itself has a commerce desk and we needed to touch base with them to see what kind of assistance and what tips that they can give us when we talk with tourism partners in Japan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Palacios said they also paid courtesy visits to some important individuals who in the past helped the CNMI\u2019s tourism industry.<\/p>\n

Most of these visits were intended to reinvigorate the Japanese market, he said.<\/p>\n

The governor said Japan is just starting its outbound tourism as COVID-19 was an issue and continues to be an issue for the Japanese travelers, but domestic travel in Japan has already recovered and is already robust.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the outbound international travel that is way behind, so that\u2019s what the Japan government is trying to incentivize and jumpstart, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key points of what we want to do to reconnect with all our partners to see what we can do, what they can do to reinvigorate and improve the tourism arrival from Japan and what we need to do as a destination,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cavanagh echoed Palacios that the Japan domestic travel industry has already recovered because both the national government as well as the provincial governments of Japan have been subsidizing it and will continue subsidizing it until this July.<\/p>\n

She said the Japanese are traveling domestically because it\u2019s so highly subsidized.<\/p>\n

Come May 8 this year, though, Japan is actually going to change the COVID-19 category to that will put it in a category that\u2019s more like an influenza, Cavanagh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat that means is all these restrictions as far as vaccinations, to taking tests, and everything will go away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cavanagh said it\u2019s going to be an open-door policy where the Japanese will be able to travel to a foreign destination and return and not worry about long lines at the airport or having to take the test.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of hoping that because it is happening on May 8, that we will be receiving more outbound,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cavanagh said Palacios also mentioned the possibility that the outbound travel will be subsidized by the national government in Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s one of the other reasons why he talked with Japanese officials. Because there is a program where they are subsidizing or helping with the outbound travel, and we hope that the CNMI will be on top of their mind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and acting Marianas Visitors Authority board chair Gloria Cavanagh are optimistic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":389337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[170],"class_list":["post-389334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389334","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}