MVA targets Australia market

The Marianas Visitors Authority plans to expand its marketing program beginning 2006 to Australia, believing that it’s another key market for the CNMI.

MVA board chairman David M. Sablan said the CNMI could be a favorite alternate destination for Australians in view of the Bali bombings.

“Australians used to go to Bali but the bombings make them think twice about going back. So this has prompted us to take a look at Australia as a market,” he said.

In a visit to the CNMI about two years ago, Australian Ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia Brendan Doran said that sprucing up tourism traffic between Australia and the CNMI is an area worth looking into, but noted that the biggest drawback is the absence of direct flights.

He said that Australians are predominantly a traveling population.

Thailand, Europe, and Bali—before the bombing tragedy—are some of the Australians’ favorite travel destinations, the diplomat said.

The envoy then vowed to help market the Marianas in his country.

Meantime, Sablan said that MVA is also poised to eagerly promote the CNMI in newer markets such as Russia and China.

The CNMI received an Approved Destination Status from the Chinese government on Dec. 31, 2004.

Formal implementation of ADS took place in April this year with the trip to Saipan of the first group of Chinese tourists.

“We’ve got a big job ahead of us,” said the board chairman.

He said that over the past four years, MVA’s overseas marketing performance has been “up and down” influenced largely by lack of funding and outside factors such as the impact of 9/11, SARS, high prices of fuel, and lately the pullout of Japan Airlines from the CNMI route.

The MVA only gets $5.9 million in appropriations from the local government, while other rival destinations in the region get 10 times more than its budget.

JAL’s departure would mean a loss of over 100,000 tourists from Japan.

The government earlier said the JAL pullout would result in $80 million to $100 million in losses across the local economy based on a projection of a 45 percent decline in the number of Japanese tourists.

MVA said that about 400,000 tourists from Japan arrive in the CNMI every year, representing nearly 75 percent of the CNMI’s tourism market.

Meantime, a presentation this week by the Strategic Economic Development Council before the Hotel Association of Northern Mariana Islands said that JAL’s pullout would result in economic loss of as much as $37 million.

SEDC said its findings were based on the study conducted by the Economist.Com.

In a June 2005 report, however, Economist.com said that the Commonwealth stands to lose as much as $216.2 million in economic output annually with JAL’s departure.

Overall, it said that the tourism industry has a total economic impact of $733 million annually.