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Chinese visitors climb to nearly 3K
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Posted on Feb 06 2006
Chinese arrivals to the CNMI for the Lunar New Year celebrations reached almost 3,000—more than 50 percent higher than the usual turnout—while the islands’ two other major tourist markets, Japan and Korea, continue to decline.
POI Aviation general manager Frank Camacho said six charter flights from China from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5 brought in a total of 2,919 passengers.
Camacho described the passenger turnout as “very high,” noting that the past totals of Chinese passengers who came to the islands to celebrate the Lunar New Year only reached 1,800 to 1,900. POI Aviation provides ground-handling services for the charter flights.
Camacho said China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines had a total of six charter flights for the Chinese holiday—two each from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Camacho noted the high turnout despite the cancellation of one charter flight from Beijing.
The bulk of the Chinese passengers came from Shanghai, numbering 518. Two flights from Beijing brought in 259 passengers each on Jan. 30 and Feb. 3.
Arrivals from Guangzhou for the Chinese holidays totaled 382, with two flights ferrying in 192 and 190 passengers respectively, on Jan. 30 and Feb. 30.
One of the charter flights from Beijing brought in 368 passengers via Boeing 777 on Jan. 31. This pushed the total passengers from Beijing to 375, even as another flight came in on Feb. 4 with only seven passengers, as that flight came to Saipan mainly to ferry out tourists back to China.
Chinese tourists totaled 32,920 in 2005. The year’s last quarter showed a 5-percent improvement in Chinese arrivals from 9,031 in 2004 to 9,510 in 2005, which slightly mitigated the impact of dwindling visitor arrivals from Japan, following the pullout of Japan Airlines’ regular flights to Saipan beginning October 2005.
