Pacific Islands Club general manager Kieran Daly said it is important to get back the Japanese market.
“It’s really important now that the government supports the Marianas Visitors Authority and the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands and provide a budget that would allow us to market the CNMI in Japan,” he told Variety.
He said Japanese tourists remain a “very important market” and the support of airlines is also necessary.
Daly said if the CNMI fails to fully tap the Japanese market, other tourist destinations will get a bigger share of it.
“They have the ability to capture some of the market share that we have had in the past. They jumped in very quickly in 2009 when the Japanese yen got stronger and the fuel surcharge was taken away,” he added.
He believes that last year presented a good opportunity to go after the Japanese market.
“Guam spent money and did well. But the CNMI did not jump on that opportunity,” he said.
Still, PIC was able to increase its arrivals from Russia for the last five years at the rate of 70 to 80 percent every year, Daly said.
It was only in 2009 when they had a “flatline” situation because tourists from Russia were uncertain if they could still enter the CNMI under the federalization law, he added.
A lot of Russian tourists didn’t know until late November last year that they could still come to the CNMI, he said.
This portion of the Russian market was picked up by other destinations like Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines, he added.
