Yu Ishida of Marianas Visitors Authority’s Japan office provides market updates during MVA’s general membership meeting at Kensington on Thursday.
YU Ishida of the Marianas Visitors Authority’s Japan office said the number of Japanese international travelers is gradually increasing, “but the weakness of the Japanese yen is still a major issue.”
He said most Japanese travelers prefer non-U.S. dollar destinations due to the current exchange rate, which is $1 to 156.56 yen.
Ishida provided updates on the emerging trends and challenges of the Japanese tourism market at the MVA general membership meeting held at Kensington Hotel on Thursday.
He believes that the CNMI “still has a chance because the Marianas is special to the Japanese,” referring to the historic ties between Japan and the islands.
Ishida said in 2023, 7,762 travelers from Japan visited the CNMI, compared to 13,779 travelers in 2024.
“It looks increasing, but I need to tell you the truth — those big numbers are from the cruise ship. We need to do something,” he said.
During its peak years, the Japanese market accounted for over 70% of the CNMI’s visitor arrivals, with over 380,000 tourists annually.
Following the pullout of Japan Airlines in 2005, arrivals from the Asian country have gradually decreased. In 2015, there were only 80,832 arrivals from Japan. In 2019, prior to Covid-19, Japanese arrivals totaled 17,121.
Starting in 2013, South Korea became the CNMI’s primary tourism market. Korean arrivals have improved but remain below pre-pandemic levels.
China was the CNMI’s largest market in 2014 and 2015 before becoming the second largest market beginning in 2016. Direct flights from mainland China ceased in 2020 during the height of the global pandemic and have yet to resume.
Island destinations
In his presentation on Thursday Ishida said Japanese travelers are still looking for island destinations, but these include Miyakojima in Okinawa.
“It’s a small island in Okinawa, 2.5 hours from Tokyo by plane [compared to Saipan which is] three hours [from Tokyo] so not a big difference,” Ishida said.
To truly understand what is happening in the Japan market, Ishida said they conducted a lot of meetings with tourism stakeholders in Japan and the Marianas.
“In the past four months the trade team held meetings with more than 100 people from various stakeholders including travel agencies, hotels, airlines and all other business partners. We deeply understood the current situation of the Marianas and were able to identify the true issues,” Ishida said.
For starters, he said there has been a decline in the number of experienced and mid-level tourism staff familiar with the Marianas.
“After Covid, they left the travel industry, [and] the [number of] people who know the true beauty of the Marianas has decreased. This is really a big problem and we are working with a lot of travel agencies to correct this situation,” he said.
In the Marianas, he added, “I’m sorry to say this, but the service level of … operators has declined due to [the] downsizing of companies.”
“This is no one’s fault — the [number of] customers decreased [so] the service level goes down,” he added.
Moreover, he said, in the past 10 years “the communication between Japanese travel agencies and local operators has disappeared.”
To help revive the Japan market, Ishida said United Airlines has started a digital advertising campaign for its Narita-Saipan route “using their own budget.”
Ishida said MVA Japan’s office has also formed “strategic partnerships” with travel agencies, which have so far resulted in the scheduled visits of two high school groups this year.
“JTB [travel agency] has confirmed 200 [visitors] for February 2025, and 100 … for October 2025. It is not a big number, but this is still important, and we are looking to make it bigger,” Ishida said.
He said MVA’s Japan office is promoting the Marianas for its diving, adventure, sports tourism, and historical memorial sites.
Ishida added that the Professional Association of Diving Instructors-Japan is showing a “strong interest” in hosting a special event on Saipan by the end of 2025.
This post was originally published on here
