ABOUT 19,000 local workers will cease receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance in September so the resumption of CNMI tourism is essential, Marianas Visitors Authority Managing Director Priscilla Iakopo said in her third quarter report to the Legislature.
As of May 2021, MVA had received $815,869 of the $2.1 million appropriated to the agency for fiscal year 2021, Iakopo said in her report to Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez and Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider.
She noted that April 2020 marked the first anniversary of the CNMI tourism shutdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Working with the Governor’s economic council, she said MVA came up with a plan to help jump-start the Commonwealth’s tourism industry, leading to the creation of Tourism Resumption Task Force.
After working closely with industry partners in the CNMI and abroad, the Tourism Resumption Investment Plan or TRIP was developed, and was adopted by the MVA board on June 1, she added.
Iakopo said, “Tourism resumption is essential as 19,000 local workers will cease receiving PUA in September.”
“We need to get our primary economic driver back online to generate jobs and revenue. TRIP aims to do that while still keeping our community safe with an initial eight-week pilot program to help business reboot and start [attracting] visitors [again],” she said.
Iakopo said the initial target market for the TRIP program is South Korea. After months of negotiations with the South Korean government, she said, the travel bubble agreement was finally signed on June 30 by Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and the South Korean Land, Infrastructure and Transport Vice Minister Seong-Kyu Hwang.
This agreement allows fully vaccinated CNMI residents and Korean residents to travel between the CNMI and Korea without the need to be quarantined.
Iakopo said, “The agreement will ensure the success of the resumption of Korean visitors to the CNMI, jump-starting our tourism industry.”
