THE Commonwealth hopes to establish a travel bubble with Japan as early as December, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said on Friday.
He said he is happy that the Marianas Visitors Authority has been looking into establishing a tourism resumption investment program for Japan, similar to the one developed for South Korea.
The governor noted that Japan’s vaccination rate has been improving, which is an important factor in establishing a travel bubble with the jurisdiction.
“I look forward to it. I do want to congratulate Japan as well for moving forward with their vaccination,” he said.
The governor said that he also hopes to see the return of Skymark Airlines flight to and from the islands, as well as to welcome other airlines interested in establishing a route between Japan and the CNMI.
MVA will need to first inform the Japan Ministry of Transportation and Ministry of Health of the CNMI’s intent to reopen this route.
The December target date is based on the current vaccination rate in Japan, MVA Managing Director Priscilla Iakopo said.
“We were advised [by MVA Japan office] that December of this year is probably a good target date as vaccination rates in Japan continue to [accelerate], as well as how the Japan government is also controlling the cases there. We understand that the Japan government has not been pushing to entertain any travel bubble with any other destination right now because they’re really trying to control their Covid-19 cases there. In the past several weeks, they’ve had over 20,000 a day of confirmed cases,” she said.
A TRIP-Japan ad hoc committee chaired by Hyatt Regency Saipan general manager Nick Nishikawa has been formed by the MVA board to resume discussions with the MVA Japan office on how to establish a CNMI-Japan travel bubble program.
“We wanted to start having these conversations because when we started TRIP-Korea, it took us several months to actually get to where we are at now. We just wanted to reach out to all of our travel partners in Japan, and also our partners here, to start having the conversations to create a TRIP plan for Japan,” Iakopo said.
The board agreed that MVA would include CNMI Covid-19 Task Force chairman and MVA board member Warren Villagomez in these key discussions, as it will be another government-to-government negotiation, similar to the travel bubble agreement between the CNMI and South Korea.
“Hopefully, we will have a good understanding of where the Japan government wants to go and the pace they want to go, then start setting down concrete plans for the reopening of the Japan market,” said TRIP-South Korea chairman Ivan Quichocho.
MVA board chairwoman Viola Alepuyo, for her part, said it is important to aggressively push forward with the Japan travel bubble sooner rather than later, while the CNMI has the advantage of being one of the safest travel destinations in the world right now.
“We only have one thing that we can sell right now, and that’s how safe our community is. That’s a marketing tool that nobody else in our region can boast of. Let’s use that marketing tool and be aggressive to establish the other travel bubbles so that we can get the tourists coming in in order to boost our economy,” she said.
