{"id":408642,"date":"2024-05-30T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=408642"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Chamber-12-daily-flights-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Chamber-12-daily-flights-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Chamber: 12 daily flights needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saipan Chamber of Commerce director Ron Smith said in order for the CNMI tourism industry to survive it needs a minimum of 12 daily flights\u2014ideally seven from Korea, four from China, and one from Japan.<\/p>\n

Speaking before the Rotary Club of Saipan\u2019s weekly membership meeting last Tuesday at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan, Smith was invited to help the service organization get a better grasp on the current economic situation by sharing a bit of what was discussed at the Chamber\u2019s 2nd Economic Forum last May 16.<\/p>\n

Smith said the 12 daily flights is the barebones minimum just to keep not only the CNMI tourism industry\u2019s head above water, but the Commonwealth economy in general, which is pretty much dependent on visitor arrivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese direct flights will allow us to recover a little bit and you can see some of the other statistics in regards to Chinese visitors and how important they are. For 40% down to 3% that is accounting for a large percentage of the current drop that we\u2019ve seen, so regardless where it\u2019s from, we don\u2019t really have a preference, but we need a third market and it\u2019s got to be a robust one. It\u2019s got to provide us with bringing 200,000-300,000 visitors per year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also shared current statistics of the CNMI tourism economy during the Rotary Club meeting and also how the dwindling number of visitor arrivals is affecting the viability of hotels on the islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently if you take a look at the statistics, you can see that arrivals are down 54% compared to 2017. This is significant and is having profound impacts on our economy. We\u2019ve already lost the Hyatt [Regency Saipan] and other hotels are evaluating their continued presence in the CNMI based upon the performance of their properties this summer. So that\u2019s going to be a defining moment for the CNMI. If they don\u2019t have enough guests coming in to maintain their properties at a profitable point, they are going to consider departure.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also shared the Chamber\u2019s plan to survive the crisis, dubbed Operation 500K to bring in 500,000 visitors a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOperation 500K represents 500,000 tourists which basically is the baseline whereby the operators and owners of the properties in the CNMI can break even. Just breaking even, stopping losses that we are currently experiencing. In order to achieve market share, approximately 90% which is what we need, these are the numbers we are going to need to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith noted that this was only a survival plan and will not create a booming economy and was only to \u201cstop the bleeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith 54% revenue coming from visitors, tourists count for 54% of all business revenue made in the CNMI. That\u2019s profound because we are talking about all business revenue from all businesses both internal and external not just tourists everything so that\u2019s a big chunk of our economy if we do not have our guests we lose half,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Showing more statistics from the past, Smith shared that in 2023, a total of 215,543 tourists visited the CNMI compared to 487,008 in 2019. The projection for 2024 is a rough estimate of 300,000 tourists will visit the islands. As such, based the latest figures the islands\u2019 tourist arrivals and hotel occupancy rates are still significantly below their pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to have sustainable visitor numbers in order to keep the hotels open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With many of the Rotarians being business leaders and owners, they have also suffered from the economic situation.<\/p>\n

In a conversation with the club\u2019s president Irene Holl, she said, \u201cIt\u2019s a challenging time for the CNMI looking at the data that Saipan Chamber presented today. What we hope to see is how the government and the people will work together to survive this crisis. We need to act fast in implementing solutions and ideas may take time. People are already affected. At the Rotary, we already approved reducing the number of meetings to alleviate financial burden to members. The club already lost quite a number of members due to the hardship, and we are expecting more during our next administration. Sad, but we still need to keep up hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the MVA, the CNMI currently has 23 weekly flights from Korea, three from Japan, two from Hong Kong, but zero weekly flights from China.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Saipan Chamber of Commerce director Ron Smith speaks to members of the Rotary Club of Saipan during the club\u2019s meeting last Tuesday at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan.<\/p>\n

-CHRYSTAL MARINO
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

After a presentation by Saipan Chamber of Commerce\u2019s Ron Smith, members of the Rotary Club of Saipan ask questions during their meeting last Tuesday at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan.<\/p>\n

-CHRYSTAL MARINO
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saipan Chamber of Commerce director Ron Smith said in order for the CNMI tourism industry…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408642","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\/408642","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\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}