Tourism can start from within

The story had it that CNMI’s economic future was sealed with the first commercial flight from Japan. True or not, the ensuing years lent some validity to that account. CNMI embraced tourism not by choice but rather by the lack of it: Tourism grew out of an abundance of the islands’ charm, of a lack of local skilled labor that might have led a different industry, of an absence of exportable goods, of an indomitable spirit to move ahead. So it was that once an economic backwater, CNMI prospered under a tourism-driven economy. And its marriage with Japan lived on. Put that aside for a moment and push fast-forward to the present.
Arrivals dropped, and the economy collapsed under the weight of the tourism’s own frailty. Enter the Marianas Visitors Authority, wagging its nose in the air, trying to sniff for tourists. Its strategy has been to create a media mileage for the CNMI, chiefly through the hiring of marketing companies in countries where tourists mostly come from, notably Japan and South Korea. Not bad, except that the once luxury of extra penny has since vanished under the gloom of the economic crisis.

It’s strange that the MVA and, especially its predecessor, the Marianas Visitors Bureau, haven’t outgrown the pomposity in trying to oversell. The situation arises not from the selling itself but from the emphasis on selling more than on product-quality enhancing. The millions poured into marketing contracts and official travels were all gone now, some questionably, and their calculated gain had just been erased by the Asian financial fallout. Meanwhile, the tourist industry’s infrastructure underpinning remains in sorry state. MVA need sell the islands, of course. After all, other industry players run multimillion campaigns too. But if marketing there must be, so must there be, at least, memories for the tourists to take home with.

Take, for example, Hong Kong’s “City of Life” slogan. That wasn’t cooked up barely out of thin air, but born of an offering of an array of goodies on marked-downed rates and of a promise of a city that stays awake when every other city else is asleep. Or consider Thailand’s “Amazing Thailand” pitch. That wasn’t a naked spin on the dollar’s buying strength against the baht; that was rooted on the reality that a dollar is worth many times over in Thailand. They beckon the tourists and leave nothing to chance.

Now that CNMI is battling a crisis of its own, efforts might well be directed toward cultivating the domestic market for social-pleasure spending. Let’s not forget that even bigtime theme-park owners, including Walt Disney, always look at the domestic capacity for support as a top consideration for investment decision-making. Indeed, that chops away dependence on foreign tourists, who must be motivated by a host of reasons for coming to a certain place over another. The CNMI only had to thank the opulence that the Japanese and the South Koreans once had for its impressive tourism growth. But the pockets of these major markets are not as deep now. And let’s not forget, too, that Japan is itself trying to stimulate domestic tourism, even going as far as dispensing with free purchase coupons, to muddle through the crisis. This ultimately will eat into CNMI’s tourism market share.

Largely forgotten in the frenzy to prop up the sagging tourist industry have been the residents, both the foreign workers and the locals. In a sense, they couldn’t be tourists right where they live. But they, too, have the child in them who wants to go sightseeing, to have leisure. How many, for instance, of those who have been on Saipan for two or three years have been to Tinian and Rota? I, for one, have been there both once. And until there’s something there that will be worth the second trip, it maytake forever before I go back.

Recently some Saipan hotels, perhaps in a desperate effort to fill in, lowered their rates and, to give the promotions a little stroking, offer free use of their amenities, which otherwise would have cost separately. There are, of course, naysayers who will argue that most residents do not have as much greens in their wallets than, say, the Japanese. That’s true. But a drop in the bucket can also fill a small bucket, right? So these hotels so far had managed to get by. Then, again, there’s the rub: winners don’t merely get by; they get ahead. With a little help from the MVA, they can be winners.

Strictly a personal view. Beverley A. Lomosad is editor of Saipan Tribune.