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April visitor arrivals post 4.4 percent increase
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Posted on May 18 2000
Visitor arrivals for the month of April jumped 4.44 percent or a total of 41,038 compared with April 1999, according to the Marianas Visitors Authority.
Arrivals from Japan, the island’s main market, registered a slight decline of one percent to 27,848 visitors. MVA attributes the drop to the reduction in airline seats to the CNMI from Japan.
Continental Airlines had daily direct flights services from Nagoya, Japan to Saipan which brought in approximately 1,738 passengers from the Japanese city in April 1999.
In addition, there were chartered flights from Japan in April 1999 which carried 668 passengers. If these two factors were omitted out of the calculations, arrivals from Japan would have shown a 7.7 percent increase in April.
Sustained growth in Korea resulted in a 74 percent jump in visitor arrivals which was mainly due to the resumption of Asiana Airlines’ direct flights from Pusan on March 26, 2000. This direct flight increased weekly airline seats from Korea to 2,183, or a 2.5 percent growth.
U.S. arrivals grew by a significant 10 percent supported by the military ship arrivals, which accounted for 34 percent of the arrivals record from the United States.
MVA has been utilizing the Sai-panda mascot, symbolizing the male Japanese traveler who keeps on going back to Saipan in its campaign to get back its lost market share in Japan.
Created by Tokyo-based advertising firm Dentsu 10, the mascot was created to increase mind share as well as to reposition and differentiate the CNMI from other destinations.
MVA’s advertising budget includes placement of advertisements in travel trade and consumer publications. Originally, MVA was planning to have a television commercial in selected cities in Japan but the limited resources has left the board with no choice but to shelve it indefinitely.
MVA has recently issued a request for proposal from different advertising and marketing groups to help evaluate the effectiveness of the Saipanda mascot in its advertising campaign in Japan. At the same time, MVA wants to know the CNMI’s market share in Japan and whether Dentsu 10’s advertising campaign is in the right direction.
