{"id":403800,"date":"2024-01-30T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=403800"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"China-or-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/China-or-bust\/","title":{"rendered":"China or bust!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems the CNMI is now committed to China over Japan. I can see a lot of students who are now adults who didn\u2019t master their lessons in world-history class on China and Japan. But only time will tell the story\u2019s ending. I will be the first to say, \u201cI pray we will be successful with this China venture.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, there are still some very serious questions yet to be answered and there are too many variables to predict a definitive outcome. For one, what will be the response of the Chinese government to their citizens coming to the CNMI? Need I remind that the Chinese government clearly stated \u201cthey are not going to allow their citizens to come to the CNMI to gamble\u201d and we are about to put e-gambling in all the hotels! Secondly, there is the very uncertain and unstable geopolitical relationship between America and China that can change at the drop of a hat. And third and finally, what is the strategy for getting the full return of the Japanese? That wasn\u2019t even mentioned, which leads me to believe that it\u2019s now China or bust! Now the very foundation that established our tourism industry is in peril.<\/p>\n

There is cause for hope that the Chinese government will not intervene and the younger Japanese generation may be more acceptable to mingling with the Chinese. But with China having a population of over 1 billion and 300 million, there is a great possibility for the CNMI to have an extremely large Chinese tourism market. If this is achieved, history has taught us that the Japanese are not going to come here in numbers and mingle with the Chinese and for those who don\u2019t learn the lessons taught to us by history, they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. We just have to wait and see and pray for the best but prepare for the worst, which is why the Marianas Visitors Authority needs to develop a new strategy for attracting tourists from China and everywhere else, given the fact that MVA is not going to advertise in China.<\/p>\n

Given that the MVA and the business sector have committed the CNMI to China but won\u2019t advertise in China because they can\u2019t afford to open an office in China, I would like to propose that MVA think outside the box to accomplish its advertising goals. China has a population with the potential to literally flood our streets with tourists from China. What MVA needs to do is create a \u201csocial media tourism team\u201d composed of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and American. A team of this nature would be far cheaper and even far more effective than opening a single office just for China, as social media platforms combined are now even more powerful and more far-reaching than CNN.<\/p>\n

In fact, by advertising through social media, the CNMI can finally start advertising our cannabis industry that has never gotten off the ground to the point of bringing in revenues. It\u2019s costing the CNMI over $200,000 more a year to operate the industry than revenues coming in. The Legislature also needs to get busy and fix some things so the cannabis tourism industry can have a real chance to grow and thrive.<\/p>\n

There is cause for hope with China but we can\u2019t just keep doing only one thing like the EVS-TAP, hoping everything else will just fall into place. We need to make sure everything falls into place to make it work or it will be all for nothing! Get busy and start advertising through social media and pray things will work out with China and Japan somehow for the betterment of our Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

Ambrose M. Bennett<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

Kagman III, Saipan<\/em><\/p>\n


Letter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems the CNMI is now committed to China over Japan. I can see a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403800","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=403800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}