By Bryan Manabat
bryan@mvariety.com
Variety News Staff
MARIANAS Visitors Authority Managing Director Jamika Taijeron credited a 42% increase in visitors from Japan to active marketing efforts, particularly the Brand Identity Marketing Strategy initiative, or BIMS, which she said has successfully targeted younger generations.
In her report to the MVA board of directors on Nov. 26, Taijeron noted growth in the Japan market for October 2025.
“We’re seeing positive numbers. It’s still small numbers, but there’s a 42% increase compared to last year for the Japan market,” Taijeron said. “We’re also seeing a 3% market share increase from China compared to last year.”
According to MVA, there were 845 arrivals from Japan in October 2025, compared to 595 in the same month last year.
Japan used to be the CNMI’s primary tourism market, with more than 380,000 arrivals annually. In 2019, prior to the 2020 pandemic, the number had plunged to just 17,121.
Board member Ivan Quichocho asked what drove the recent increase in Japanese arrivals. Taijeron responded that flight schedules were similar to last year, but recent marketing efforts under the BIMS campaign have made a difference.
“We believe it’s a lot of the different things we’ve been doing recently with the BIMS campaign. The past few months have been heavy on marketing with the younger generation,” she said.
Quichocho also asked which marketing efforts were working and which were not. Taijeron said MVA’s market representatives provide Key Performance Indicator reports.
“There are definitely a few that are not working, but there are some good ones that we’ve gained a lot of exposure with,” she said.
MVA has contracted Dentsu Inc. to manage its Japan office. Taijeron said the agency has streamlined its services and is working with subcontractor JGM, which has developed new programs.
“I feel that the programs they developed, also through JTB and other partners, are a result of what we’re seeing right now,” she said. “In the past month, we’ve worked with them to come up with a plan for the whole year, and they submitted that. We’re very happy to see the programs they’re putting in place, which are very achievable and very KPI-focused, or performance-focused.”
Taijeron said MVA allocated $200,000 for the Japan market this year.
“Unfortunately, that budget is almost entirely depleted because we had some major events that we participated in during September. We’ll be requesting the board to approve an additional increase to that budget,” she added.
She also noted that JTB has developed educational products for school students from Japan.
“We have two large student groups from Japan — one close to 200 students and the other over 100. We’re expecting them soon, and the first group will come from December 1 to 4,” she said.
As for the China market, MVA reported 11,113 arrivals, with 80% coming via Hong Kong and 20% via Korea.
Bryan Manabat was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College where he also studied criminal justice. He is the recipient of the NMI Humanities Award as an Outstanding Teacher (Non-Classroom) in 2013, and has worked for the CNMI Motheread/Fatheread Literacy Program as lead facilitator.
