NMI, Guam bat for visa waivers for Russian, Chinese tourists

A special task force is lobbying federal officials with a just-released report in a bid to win visa waivers for Chinese and Russian visitors to the Commonwealth and Guam, a move that would preserve a key segment of the local tourism economy.

The Marianas Integrated Immigration Task Force—a group of CNMI and Guam officials organized after President Bush in May signed legislation federalizing the region’s immigration rules—presented the report to departments of Homeland Security and Interior officials in a meeting last week and it served as a central part of talks on Monday.

At issue in the report is the Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver Program, a system established under the new law that would let foreign visitors enter the United States and its territories without a visa. The program, according to the report, would grant visa waivers based on whether Guam and the Commonwealth can put sufficient controls in place to regulate arrivals and departures, whether the waivers would threaten national security and the potential for the waivers to bolster the economy.

Under current local rules, tourists from Russia and China have access to the CNMI without a visa. Korean or Taiwanese travelers also get a visa waiver when traveling to Guam. However, the pending federal takeover of immigration rules could impose mainland U.S. visa restrictions on these travelers, a prospect that threatens to stifle the region’s tourism market and foreign investments.

Yet the waiver program could provide a solution to these concerns. DHS is poised to publish a list of the nations approved for the waivers by Nov. 8. Preserving Chinese and Russian tourism through the program will prove critical to the Commonwealth’s tourism economy, local task force members said Wednesday.

“Those markets, although they seem small, have a significant economic impact on the CNMI and Guam,” said Perry Tenorio, managing director of the Marianas Visitors Authority, who sits on the task force. “We’re working with the two federal agencies and we’re hopeful they will be able to help us.”

After recent drops in Japanese tourism, Chinese and Russian visitors served as an economic lifeline for many businesses, according to Marian Aldan-Pierce, task force member and president of DFS Saipan Limited.

“They have been the saving grace for the CNMI,” Aldan-Pierce said. “Had we not had the Chinese and the Russians and the Koreans, our economy would have really been in a lot of trouble.”

China and Russia are critical to the future growth of the local tourism market, the report notes. The CNMI has already invested $35 million to market itself in China, it says, which has 36 million outbound travelers each year. Last year alone, an estimated 45,000 Chinese tourists visited the Commonwealth.

Meanwhile, the Russian market has grown steadily since the late 1990s, the report says. Russian tourists, it adds, tend to stay the longest in the Commonwealth and spend more than any other tourism demographic.

The impact of losing visa exemptions that have let foreign visitors travel freely to the CNMI and Guam would be staggering, the report shows, costing the islands millions each year. Tourist spending in the CNMI for 2008 is projected to total more than $1 billion with the visa waivers in place, the report says. Without them, that figure would drop to about $876 million. Projected losses to the local tourism market without the waivers are even greater in the future. By 2010, the report says, tourism spending with the waivers in place would reach nearly $2 billion, but would sit at roughly $1.3 billion without them.

Language in the federalization bill, the report notes, “states that it should be implemented whenever possible to expand tourism and economic development in the Commonwealth, including aiding prospective tourists in gaining access.” Based on this provision and data in the report, “the CNMI and Guam should have access to Chinese and Russian tourists” under the joint CNMI-Guam visa waiver program.