Previous Story
Arrivals target for FY07 reduced
|
Posted on Dec 14 2006
Aware of the limited airline seats and the lack of finances to aggressively promote the CNMI overseas, the Marianas Visitors Authority has scaled back its arrivals forecast this fiscal year to what it feels is a more realistic level—476,250 rather than 560,650.
The MVA presented this revised projection during its recent general membership meeting at Hyatt Regency Saipan.
The MVA lowered its arrivals forecast for Japan, China/ Hong Kong.
The MVA now hopes to bring in 250,000 instead of 312,000 from Japan and 60,000 rather than 91,500 from China/Hong Kong.
For Korea and Taiwan, the MVA increased its projected arrivals. From the original target of 91,500, the MVA increased its projection to 100,000 from Korea.
MVA said this increase was primarily due to the positive outlook of Asiana Airlines, the lone airline servicing the market for the CNMI.
The projection for the Taiwan market, meantime, was increased from 7,900 to 10,000. This is due to the anticipated launching of chartered flights between Saipan and Taipei in the next few months.
It will be spearheaded by Fiesta Resort & Spa.
MVA’s targets for Russia remain at 3,250 and all other markets at 53,000.
The new arrivals target for FY 2007 reflects a 15-percent decline from the original estimate of 560,650.
The new arrivals forecast of 476,250 is about 6 percent more than the actual arrivals in fiscal year 2006, which totaled 443,812.
The 2006 figure is 16 percent less than the FY 2005 arrivals.
Meantime, the reduced estimate for Japan market was caused by the termination of Northwest Airlines’ Osaka flights effective last October.
Right now, NWA only flies Narita-Saipan and Nagoya-Saipan.
In fiscal year 2006, covering October 2005 to September 2006, the CNMI received 280,292 visitors from Japan, which is a 25-percent decline compared to the previous fiscal year.
This huge decline was attributed to the loss of air seats due to JAL pullout in October 2005.
Japan Airlines used to bring in an average of 150,000 tourists a year.
Japan arrivals represent about 60 percent of the total tourist arrivals in the CNMI.
