The Northern Marianas tourism boss is thanking social media for marketing the territory as a same-sex marriage destination.
Photo: 123rf
Recent figures released by the mayor of Saipan show same-sex marriage licences have topped conventional ones.
From January through September 2018, the mayor's office conducted a total of 96 same-sex marriages compared with 31 heterosexual marriages.
The Marianas Visitors Authority's managing director says they are coming from their core markets of South Korea, China and Japan.
Christopher Concepcion said this is despite not targeting to the LGBTI community.
"The power of social media these days, it's pretty amazing. Definitely we haven't actively marketed it at all so it really is attributed to social media I think and word of mouth. I guess it's a good thing, I mean it's a good market that we could potentially target in the future."
Christopher Concepcion said conservative Christian views have previously presented a barrier to broadening the audience of the CNMI's marriage marketing.
