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Fitial to transfer MVA office from Tokyo to Nagoya
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Posted on Dec 21 2005
Gov.-elect Benigno R. Fitial has announced his plans to close Marianas Visitors Authority’s Tokyo office and focus on the Nagoya tourism market during an interview with a Japanese-language newspaper.
The Dec. 1, 2005 edition of the Mid-Japan Economist carried a question-and-answer article on Fitial, who was interviewed by the newspaper during the Japan leg of his recently concluded Asian business tour.
The Mid-Japan Economist quoted Fitial as saying that he planned to close MVA’s current office in Tokyo and make Nagoya the center of the CNMI’s promotional efforts in Japan.
Tokyo is Japan’s capital city and the origin of most Japanese tourists who visit the CNMI.
Fitial said he picked Nagoya to be the location of the CNMI’s tourism and business office because the city was the center of Japanese economic activity. Nagoya, he added, was further economically invigorated by the 2005 World Exposition held in the city from March 25 to Sept. 25, 2005.
Fitial said he would establish the CNMI’s tourism office in Nagoya on April 1, 2006. The office, he added, may be a branch of the Governor’s Office with about 10 staff members.
Fitial also briefly discussed the CNMI’s economic condition, citing the withdrawal of airlines and the weakening of the local garment industry. He said he hoped to increase the number of tourists coming to the islands and eventually get the airlines to return.
Currently, MVA has offices in Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, Korea; and Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in China.
The incoming governor also bared plans to establish the first medical school in the Marianas. The school, he said, would take advantage of the CNMI’s proximity to Asia and accept students from the region, including Japan.
