Exactly two months today, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake shook Sendai in northern Japan and other nearby areas.
That quake triggered a strong tsunami that ravaged coastal towns within its path and damaged the aging Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Since then more than 2,800 bookings to Saipan were canceled by Japanese travelers.
Bateman said statistics show Korean arrivals also suffered in the aftermath of the disaster that struck Japan, the main market of the local tourism industry.
“What’s worse is that it’s not just the Japanese market that is impacted but other markets as well. Even the Korean market is heavily impacted. They fear leaving Korea and coming here, they might be impacted by a radiation cloud or something,” Bateman told the Variety.
Apparently, a person who lives on Saipan wrote a piece of article about the CNMI hit by a tidal wave.
“There’s a fellow who lives on island who wrote a story immediately afterward about the possible tidal waves and wrote the story for a Korean newspaper that made it sound like, we had been, in the past tense, that we were affected when actually we’re not. It’s just a two-meter wave,” said Bateman who did not identify the person he referred to in his statement.
Based on that person’s account, potential travelers from Korea made an inference that it was not safe to travel to the CNMI which is located about 1,300 miles south of Tokyo.
“It’s not a rational fear they have because they are much closer to Japan,” said Bateman.
Federal and local authorities assured, however, that the CNMI is out of the radiation danger zone based on scientific measurements conducted on its atmosphere and water.
MVA statistics showed March arrivals from Korea fell by 14 percent to 7,072 — its first negative growth this fiscal year 2011.
The downtrend is largely attributed to the tragic incident in Japan.
