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Estimated $24M impact due to cancelled flights
HANMI expects fully booked seats from Chinese tourists today
As of last Thursday, a total of 9,268 tourists have so far cancelled their trips to the CNMI, translating to $24 million in lost revenue for the islands, according to the Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Perry Tenorio.
Tenorio said the estimate is based on January of this year’s average room and occupancy rates, which is very similar to this month.
Earlier this month, Tenorio disclosed that 7,000 tourists have so far cancelled their trips due to Typhoon Soudelor.
Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands president Gloria Cavanagh the cancellations from the prior 7,000 tourists were from charter flights from Asia. With Tropical Storm Goni that passed the CNMI over the weekend, cancellations continued yesterday.
“This is because it is a holiday for Asia such as Japan, China, and Korea. However, tomorrow we’re expecting the flights from Guangzhou and Shanghai, because when I spoke with Tom Liu at Saipan Travel Inc., that will be the charter flights coming in. They normally run six flights a week and will resume tomorrow [Aug. 17],” Cavanagh said.
However, the incoming flights is also causing problems for hotels due to the influx of local and off-island emergency responders including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross. This is causing overlaps in booking rooms.
“Everyone was affected, so now starting tomorrow, Aug. 17, everyone is pretty hard pressed to continue to hold rooms for FEMA and locals. We had cancellations [but] we were able to fill those rooms with local and emergency crews and we were affected in the decrease of the hotel occupancy,” she added.
Cavanagh said that hotels would have made about $3 million a day, and that is probably from Japanese guests, which make up the majority of the 7,000 flight cancellations.
“The rates given to locals and FEMA are lower than the actual rates for this peak season,” she said.
