ACTING Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said under the travel bubble agreement between the CNMI and South Korea, only vaccinated tourists from the Asian country can visit the islands.
“We want to make sure that our community will be safe so our protocol is that only vaccinated people will come to Saipan and we will also retain our quarantine protocol — we are going to test them twice,” Palacios added.
“Before we resumed tourism, we, along with the [Covid-19] task force [and the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.], also looked at all these different parameters, like the cost of subsidizing or incentivizing the airlines to fly here and hotels to open up,” he said.
“We looked at all that and came up with proper protocols to begin the resumption of our tourism industry and at the same time working on the safety protocols needed to keep our islands safe.”
Last month, the Marianas Visitors Authority approved a tourism resumption proposal — the CNMI Tourism Resumption Investment Plan or TRIP — that will be funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and whose goal is to “create demand” and revive the CNMI tourism industry.
The plan includes an eight-week pilot program that will be launched in partnership with South Korea-based airlines, and it involves subsidies and incentives for airlines, tour agencies and tourists themselves.
South Korea is the CNMI’s primary tourism market.
