The strength of the entire Fijian Tourism Industry is the people, says Acting Prime Minister and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

He was congratulating the Outrigger Fiji Beach Resort last Saturday night on their 15-year anniversary celebration.

He reminisced about how the old Reef resort has now rebranded itself into the more modern and bigger Outrigger Fiji Beach Resort.

“Repeated surveys have always pointed out that the reason why tourists come back to Fiji is the people.

“The Fijian hospitality, the Fijian ability, whether it’s the children; their ability to make people welcome is unsurpassed,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.

He said the Government believed in taking advantage of such opportunities.

“As you would have heard in the budget announcement that we are now partnering with Fiji Airways where we are giving $18 million next year to strengthen the marketing strategy because Fiji Airways will now be flying to Singapore on April 5 which is their first flight,” he said.

“This actually means that Fiji now will fly to every single continent that rims the Pacific Ocean except South America which of course will be probably the next frontier for Fiji Airways.

“The reality is that we fly to LA, we fly to Hong Kong; Korean Airways flies to Seoul; we will fly to Singapore and of course we fly to Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the Pacific island countries.”

He said this was exciting times for Fiji with the Government increasing the Tourism Fiji budget allocation to $30million from $23.5million.

He said the Government had also imposed an environment levy which showed a commitment to the international world that Fijians were concerned about the environment.

He said the Prime Minister would be in Paris for the COP21 meeting with the hope to get some fundamental agreement, particularly from the  industrialised countries regarding climate change, rise in sea level and the ability to mitigate against these phenomenas.

“The fact that we have tourism contributing almost 33 to 35 percent towards the GDP, and of course is a huge contributor towards our economy and we intend to work with all resource, all property and tourism stakeholders to make sure that we maintain the premier position of the tourism sector in Fiji.”

General Manager for the Resort Peter Hopgood said it had been a great journey for the Resort.

“Tonight we celebrate the 15 years at the Outrigger Fiji Beach Resort, it has been a great journey and a momentous occasion and we acknowledge those that have committed their service to the resort,” he said.

The 26   employees, who served for 15 years at the resort, were awarded with certificates and a specially crafted tanoa.

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