MVA Chairman Jerry Tan and Managing Director Perry Tenorio, in the report, said the decrease was due to the lack of airline seats which started in 2005 when Japan Airlines pulled out its Saipan flight service.
In FY 2007, arrivals from the island’s primary market of Japan dropped by 23 percent, with only 215,196 Japanese visitors — the lowest since 1998.
On Oct. 28, 2006 Northwest Airlines suspended its daily direct flights from Osaka to Saipan which resulted in the daily loss of 182 airline seats.
In April 2007, Northwest terminated its night time flights from Narita, which represented a loss of 1,720 seats per week for the CNMI.
Northwest also changed its Narita flight’s aircraft from 747 with a 350-seat capacity to an Airbus 330 with 298 seats. This resulted in a 15 percent reduction in seats for the CNMI.
Japan continues to be the primary market for the CNMI with Japanese arrivals accounting for 54 percent of the total CNMI arrivals in 2007.
But in terms of market performance in FY 2007, Japan was down 23 percent while South Korea increased by 22 percent.
China also grew by 7 percent, the Philippines by 59 percent, and Russia by 111 percent.
The report added that although the 2007 arrivals were down, they did exceed the target visitor numbers outlined in the governor’s five-year strategic plan for FY 2007.
MVA earlier adjusted the projected arrivals for 2010 from 1 million to 750,000.
In FY 2007, there were 95,403 visitors from South Korea compared to 80,764 in FY 2006.
MVA attributed this growth to the increased seat capacity provided by Asiana Airlines “combined with the aggressive marketing campaigns” of the agency.
The report stated that the additional flights from Busan increased the number of Korean seats by 20 percent.
The CNMI made history in FY 2007 with the arrival of the first charter flight from Russia in Jan. 2007, the report stated.
