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TRIP faces complication
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Posted on Oct 05 2021
The Marianas Visitors Authority’s tourism resumption program, or TRIP, has hit a snag, with the influx of tourists expected to arrive in the next few months but with not enough room at the hybrid quarantine facility to accommodate all of them.
According to Ivan Quichocho, MVA board member and TRIP South Korea chairman, over 40 TRIP bookings had been cancelled as of Sept. 30 because there was no room at the Kensington Hotel Saipan, the CNMI’s lone hybrid quarantine facility, where the arriving Travel Bubble tourists stay for their initial stay in the CNMI.
Quichocho said CNMI could have served over 8,000 TRIP participants from October to Dec. 31 if there was enough room at the hybrid quarantine facility.
“As a result of these numbers, we need to take a long hard look at expanding the hybrid quarantine in order to keep up with the volume,” he said.
Currently, the CNMI expects to serve a total of 7,794 TRIP participants through the end of the year.
Fortunately, two hotels have submitted proposals, or have shown interest in submitting a proposal, to serve as a hybrid quarantine facility but to date, MVA has yet to release the names of which hotel has submitted proposals.
With the proposals, the CNMI can expect its hybrid quarantine facility to expand by roughly up to 140 more rooms, Quichocho said.
Because of the CNMI’s growing popularity in South Korea as the only marketable destination and the safest destination to travel, bookings continue to grow in numbers every day and airlines have also started proposing to increase daily flights to Saipan due to the demand.
According to Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Priscilla Iakopo, two of South Korea’s most popular airlines, Air Busan and Air Seoul, have reached out to MVA and want to participate in the Saipan-South Korea Travel Bubble program.
Iakopo said the two airlines are looking at launching their first flights to the CNMI as early as October.
From the inception of the program until the end of the year, the CNMI has either served or has booked 7,899 passengers to participate in the program.
