Only one airport for Saipan flights stymies NMI chances

Sachiko Tahara, leftmost, back row, pose with Vivid Blue, a Japanese football team that has visited Saipan annually since 2007. (Erwin Encinares)

At one point in 1997, when the Japanese market was at its peak, you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a Japanese tourist. Now the shrinking Japanese market is starting to look like a dwarf.

In 1997, the CNMI had 450,190 Japanese visitors. In 2016, that number was down to 62,120. It is an understatement to say that there has been a huge decrease in the market compared to the past.

One of those who has witnessed this happen is 40-year-old Sachiko Tahara.

The coach of a Japanese soccer team that is known as Vivid Blue, Tahara has been frequenting Saipan for 10 years. She has made 15 trips to Saipan since her first trip in February 2007, mostly to play mini-tournaments with sister football club MP United.

According to Tahara, she keeps coming back to Saipan because of its community. “Although I cannot speak English very well, I feel something in common [with the people]. Even though we cannot communicate well with others, it is mostly the local people that make me come back,” she said.

Tahara brings with her her team of soccer players to play friendly matches with the local soccer clubs. Of her 15 trips to Saipan, 10 were soccer-related.

One reason why the parents of the children in her team allows them to go overseas and play soccer is because Vivid Blue has a longstanding relationship with many island residents.

Yet one of the reasons Saipan isn’t too well known in Japan is because only the Narita airport offers flights between Saipan and Japan. Narita airport is a several-hour trip from Tahara’s home in Japan.

“When we come to Saipan, we always use the same travel agency. I talked to the travel agent and, in most cases, according to them, if Japanese people go to Saipan once, that is good enough. The reason is because in comparison to Hawaii and Guam, it is very difficult because there is only one flight,” she said.

“You can fly [to Guam] from [other airports in the country],” she added.

Tahara really hopes to see Saipan become as popular as it was back then.

“Something’s got to be done. It used to be popular to tourists because Saipan was close, cheap, and safe. I really hope that other Japanese tourists would wish to come back to Saipan,” she said.

Market downfall

Japan Airlines’ decision to pull out of Saipan back in the early 2000’s is really what sealed the deal for the Japanese market downfall.

As of today, the Francisco C. Ada Saipan International Airport caters to five airlines serving the Korean market, while the Chinese market is served by four airlines.

In comparison, the only airline serving the Japanese-Saipan market is Delta Air Lines, using a narrowbody airplane.

MVA managing director Chris Concepcion earlier told Saipan Tribune that MVA is “”confident we’ll have additional service from Japan in the coming months.”

“This is an extremely valuable asset that we must protect for our economic stability,” he said.

If for some reason the U.S. government decides to drop the Chinese-Russian parole authority of the CNMI, then the CNMI would be left with only about 300,000 visitors.

That visitor number means another depression for the CNMI, which could also translate to eventually losing the other tourist markets interested in Saipan due to the lack of funding for much needed renovations of dated infrastructures—an aspect that is important to a tourism-driven economy.

Japan and Korea are the only countries nearby whose visitors could enter the CNMI by just presenting their passports. This fact stresses the importance of the Japanese market to the CNMI and is also another reason why the CNMI should work even harder to regain the Japanese market.