By Zaldy Dandan – Variety Editor
Figures
TO paraphrase economics professor Russell Roberts, the purchases of tourists in the CNMI are the islands’ exports. “When a…tourist spends a night in a…hotel, it is the same as shipping goods abroad without paying a transportation fee. It is the same with a restaurant meal. A restaurant meal eaten by a…tourist is the same as shipping food abroad. A…tourist’s expenditures are a way to export goods and services in a funny way. Instead of shipping the food there, the foreigner comes and picks it up here. The tourist pays the freight charge.”
Until a new major industry comes in, settles down, and thrives, tourism will remain the islands’ “bread and butter” — even as others chase economic ponies and rainbows.
The most recent arrival figures, however, remain dismal. The monthly numbers this year, so far:
Jan. 2025: down 26%
Feb. 2025: down 32%
March 2025: down 27%
April 2025: down 39%
May 2025: down 36%
June 2025: down 60%
July 2025: down 33%
Aug. 2025: down 41%
Sept. 2025: down 50%
Oct. 2025: down 29%
Will these numbers improve? Everyone hopes so. In fiscal year 2025, there were only 160,640 tourists who visited the islands. The tourism industry needs at least 500,000 annual visitors to stay afloat.
MVA, to be sure, is doing the best it can with what it has — and it doesn’t have much. The government should find ways to provide MVA with additional promotion funding or, at the very least, stop imposing new burdens on the tourism industry and the business community as a whole.
Time to really set priorities
AS the administration and lawmakers continue to argue over the MPLT loan conditions, government employees and retirees are left wondering whether their insurance coverage will continue, while PSS waits for the additional funding it is owed.
Meanwhile, the taxpaying public wants to know what other cost-cutting measures the government is considering — a government that is clearly still spending more than it can collect. Raising taxes and fees in this economy is out of the question; it may even reduce revenue. Nor can the government borrow its way out of a financial crisis of its own making. It has so many “priorities,” which is no way to set priorities.
Voters, for their part, continue to ask for the moon, while politicians promise the moon and the stars — good politics, but terrible math.
Zaldy Dandan is the recipient of the NMI Society of Professional Journalists’ Best in Editorial Writing Award and the NMI Humanities Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. His four books are available on amazon.com/.
