‘Travel bubble between S. Korea and Saipan is ideal’

Hong Kyun Kim

Talks of a travel bubble—opening Saipan to tourists from South Korea in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic—have been on the table since late last year but that is still up in the air because the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport has yet to respond to the CNMI’s request for a meeting.

Long-time businessman and P&A Corp. chair Hong Kyun Kim believes, though, that a travel bubble agreement between South Korea and Saipan can serve as a model for other countries that are trying to find ways to slowly open up and ignite the tourism industry that was put on hold due to COVID-19 pandemic.

“The travel bubble concept is ideal between South Korea and Saipan. …Japan and China will take a long time, that’s why the focus is on South Korea. …The CNMI is the best place to welcome back tourists from Korea because of its good history of handling and implementing COVID-19 protocols that effectively screens arriving passengers and limit community transmission…and for their part, South Korea started to distribute the vaccine [in the] last week of February,” he said.

Kim, who owns several businesses in the CNMI, supports the idea of travel bubble, saying that, as president of the Saipan Korea Cultural Center and representing Korean businesses on island, he is working on this independently to help fast-track the coordination between the CNMI and South Korea governments, with a target date of July this year.

He pointed out that the CNMI’s record in handling the pandemic “is like no other.” When news of a COVID-19 outbreak came out in January 2020, the CNMI government and health leaders took it seriously early on. By March, the CNMI was under a state of significant emergency and state of public emergency, mass testing was done in April led by the COVID-19 Task Force. In December, the CNMI started to receive vaccines, and by January, vaccination to priority groups started ramping up.

“Saipan is attractive to Korean tourists. Aside from it being close, just a three-hour flight away, other factors are noteworthy. First, no COVID-19 case was reported from Korea from the time of the outbreak and when flights were stopped. Even when charter flights went back-and-forth to carry Korean nationals back to Korea, there were zero reports of positive cases and transmission. Of all the positive cases that surfaced after quarantine on Saipan, no Korean national was involved. Second, the CNMI has vaccinated over 10,000 residents already, which makes 10% of the population. Third, CNMI officials are hoping to achieve more than 90% vaccination of the population,” he said. “With the current vaccination registration and procedure, we will be able to reach 80% and achieve herd immunity by April.”

Kim assured that Koreans are ready to travel and have been reserving trips not only to the CNMI but in other parts of the world, “which means they are ready to travel and it would be good for the economy if we capture that market,” Kim added

Kim said that he will meet with Gov. Ralph DLG Torres at the end of this month to talk about plans of a possible trip to Korea and talk to public officials there.