The Governor of the Northern Marianas says it needs to attract Japanese tourists to visit the CNMI, given the growth in their economy.
Governor Benigno Fitial says Northwest Airlines has just launched an extra flight from Japan using a 757 aircraft.
The extra daily flight brings to 28 the airline's total number of flights between Saipan, Nagoya, Narita and Osaka every week.
The downtrend in Japanese arrivals pulled down the overall number of tourists who visited from Octpber 2005 to March 2006 to 221,534.
This is down by more than 18 percent compared to the same period last year that recorded 271,084 arrivals.
The continued decline was largely attributed to Japan Airlines' decision to stop its 14 weekly direct flights from Tokyo to Saipan.
