December eyed for chartered Beijing flights

In line with the CNMI government’s goal of attracting nearly 100,000 tourists from China in Fiscal Year 2007, two chartered flights a week from Beijing are expected to be launched by December.

Century Tours, one of the only two CNMI-based tour agencies accredited under the 2004 CNMI-China Approved Destination Status agreement, hopes to have the Beijing flights commence within the next couple of months.

“We don’t have the exact date yet but we’re looking at December,” said Century Tours manager Henry Pun in an interview yesterday.

He said Air China would use a Boeing 767, which has a capacity of 214 passengers. This means an additional 428 seats from the China market.

Right now, China is serviced by China Southern Airlines from Guangzhou and China Eastern Airlines from Shanghai.

In FY 2006 covering October 2005 to September 2006, these two airlines brought in over 36,000 tourists, a little short of the government’s 40,000 target for the period.

China Southern Airlines is being chartered by Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino while China Eastern Airlines is co-chartered by Tinian Dynasty and Century Tours.

Pun said there is no final decision yet whether the Beijing flights would also be co-chartered by Tinian Dynasty.

“We are still finalizing things,” said Pun.

The Marianas Visitors Authority’s five-year strategic initiative projects to bring in 92,000 tourists from China and Hong Kong in FY 2007; 145,000 in FY 2008; 197,000 in FY 2009; and 250,000 in 2010,

This goal is in line with the 1 million tourists a year target by the government by 2010.

Under the plan, CNMI aims to bring in 500,000 tourists from Japan, representing 50 percent of total arrivals; 250,000 or 25 percent from China; 150,000 or 15 percent from Korea; 25,000 or 2.5 percent from Taiwan; 10,000 or 1 percent from Russia; and 65,000 or 6.5 percent from other markets.

As of FY 2006, the CNMI brought in 280,292 tourists from Japan; 80,764 from Korea; and 36,978 from China. The government is just starting with the Russian market.

Under the strategic plan, the CNMI aims to take advantage of its ADS agreement with China and local control over immigration to attract Chinese tourists.

The ADS allows Chinese group tours in the CNMI.

Pun said: “We are doing our best to promote the CNMI in China. We hope to convince more airlines to fly direct because that’s the way to boost the arrival numbers.”

He said the China market’s performance in FY 2006 was “pretty good,” citing an 80-percent load factor.