As the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands begins to pick up the pieces after Super Typhoon Sinlaku, its tourism industry, the backbone of the local economy, now faces an uncertain road to recovery. The Marianas Visitors Authority says while the damage is significant, the focus now shifts to rebuilding confidence, restoring key infrastructure, and bringing visitors back to the islands.

"It's definitely sad, its a very bad situation. We had a few tourists here just over 500 tourists, at the beginning of the typhoon, and we're glad they finally went back home, it was a long week, it was an unexpected week that they had to stay here but I think the tourists were quite traumatized but I think they understand that this was an act of God, part of nature and they really had their heart, they really felt heartfelt appreciation that the people of CNMI have to go through," explained Marianas Visitors Authority managing director Jamika Taijeron says the island looks very rough right now, and they have to just start rebuilding.

"All of the hotels that we were in contact with, maintained the accommodations with the visitors at a discounted rate, some hotels had significant damage to their kitchen, they were unable to provide what they expected to provide, in the end they were able to make partnerships with restaurants to provide that to their guests," she said.

Turning to airlines, Taijeron provided an update, saying, "The airport has sustained minor damage to their navigation aide and their runway lights, so we are only able to accommodate daytime flights. Thats why we're able to maintain the daily flights with united because they fly from guam during the dytime hours, at this moment."

She says everything is moving parts right now, adding, "When we do get the airlines up and running we also have the rooms to accommodate visitors."

Taijeron says the magnitude of the storm really beat them up in many ways. "I just want to say, let's rebuild, we do need tourists, we do need the tourism industry to run again, but it will take a little time, and our team is figuring out how we can move forward, hope and inspiration maintain our marianas strong and resilient community," she said.