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Hotels report drop in occupancy rate
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Posted on Nov 24 2000
The Hotel Association of Northern Mariana Islands has reported that average occupancy rate has continuously declined with only 59.82 percent for the month of October compared to the 62.79 percent rate in September.
According to HANMI, the occupancy rate for the month of October 2000 is much lower since the occupancy rate for the same month covering the previous year was 60.46 percent.
The average rate also declined by nearly $10 from October 1999 ($83.15) to October 2000 ($73.49).
October 2000 was the lowest month ever reported by the association since it started gathering statistics from its members in January 1992.
Visitor arrivals for the month of October totaled 40,423, a slight decline of 1.27 percent compared to October 1999. Japan, the island’s main source of tourist, registered the biggest drop at 12 percent.
The slump in Japanese arrivals for the first month of fiscal year 2001 came two months after the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a warning in its website for its nationals declaring the Northern Marianas as an unsafe destination due to rising criminality.
Tourism officials have focused their efforts in getting back the island’s market share in Japan, which has been on a decline since the Asian economic recession. Despite its limited budget, the Marianas Visitors Authority has implemented marketing campaigns in newspapers, magazines, radio and television in Japan to increase visibility as the neighboring island Guam has aggressively carried out its own promotion to get a bigger share of the Japanese market.
