Marianas Visitors Authority Managing Director Perry Tenorio who just came back from Japan to promote the CNMI said he saw a lot of cancelled trips to the destination due to the H1N1 virus.
“H1N1 is scaring a lot of our visitors, especially, in Japan. They are a little bit more sensitive to this than other countries,” he told the Variety.
Although the CNMI has a very limited airseats from Japan, the country remains its top source of tourists accounting for about 70 percent of travelers visiting the islands every year.
“We’re still finding out,” Tenorio answered when asked how many Japanese groups cancelled their trip here thus far. “But there are a lot of cancellations like school trips and group trips cancelled,” he said.
“There are people in Japan that are concerned about possible contamination from this virus.”
Japan said its cases of H1N1 have now reached more than 200.
On Guam, where 80 percent of 1.2 million annual visitors come from Japan, authorities project a double-digit drop this month.
Guam Gov. Felix Camacho told the U.S. House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife during the May 19 congressional hearing that authorities project a 23 percent decline in the Japanese arrival rate this month largely due to H1N1 virus.
MVA statistics showed a total of 131,892 Japanese visited the CNMI since the start of fiscal year 2009 in October — down by 3 percent compared to a year ago.
Tenorio said MVA continues to explore the possibility of securing more airseats from different international carriers serving the Japan route.
