While tourists arrivals from its Japan continued to nosedive, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas has grown visitor numbers from Korea.
Based on the latest data from the Marianas Visitors Authority, MVA, Japan showed a significant decline of 19 percent in the overall arrivals for January with total of 18,018 visitors compared to the 22,302 recorded during the same period last year.
MVA said while the CNMI still had the same number of flights operating in January, smaller aircraft has resulted in fewer available seats.
Couple that with Delta Airlines' announced suspension of its regular flights from Nagoya from April 5 to June 9 and MVA is now looking at an additional cut in airline seats from Japan.
MVA, meanwhile, reported that arrivals from Korea posted a 35-percent growth last month.
January 2010 records showed that it registered 11,710 total visitor arrivals compared to January 2009's only 8,676 visitors.
In December last year, the same market posted 25 percent hike in overall arrivals compared to the same period in December 2008.
