There will be six direct charter flights from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan come next month flying into Nadi via a direct flight.

There will be two from Shanghai, two from Beijing and two from Taipei.

The visitors will be here to celebrate the Chinese New Year making use of our exotic and attractive destinations.

The China mainland charter flights will collectively bring in around 1100 visitors while the Taiwan flights will bring in close to 500 visitors. That in totality will be close to 1600 additional tourists.

So why do we need these tourists and especially in February?

For Fiji, February is generally a low season for tourism. This means that our resorts, hotels and the overall services sector rely on locals to sustain their operations and the few tourists who do come this way.

And this is also the time when those extra hands hired by the tourism sector are told to take “rest” as they will be called once the numbers pick up.

For many of those working in the tourism sector, this is their bread and butter. The job means whether they are able to provide for the families properly or not.

Thus, looking outside our traditional sources of tourists will not just benefit the businesses but those Fijians working in the industry and their livelihoods.

Coincidently, during our low season, it is the high season for travel in some of Asian markets which are emerging markets for us.

The past year, February recorded our lowest number of visitor arrivals which was 42,175 as per provisional visitor arrival figures from the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.

However, this would have been even lower had there been no charter flights from mainland China (Shanghai). This was a first.

And all this has been possible through the efforts of Rosie Holidays who have been the ones who organised the first charters from mainland China the past year.

It is Rosie Holidays vision and forward and innovative thinking that has led to this development in the tourism sector.

And if every stakeholder in the tourism industry starts thinking outside the box, we will never have a down period in our tourism industry.

Taiwan, although with a smaller population than other Asian markets, has just as much potential.

Taiwan has a population of 23 million but the Taiwanese love to travel. This was apparent in their travel numbers of 2014 where 11.8 million people were recorded to have travelled. That is more than 50 per cent of the population.

Fiji is still a virgin destination for many of these travellers as they have already travelled other popular destinations.

Therefore, the Taiwan charters will be just in time not to only fill in the gaps but also to bring them to our market and opening doors to many other Taiwanese tourists. All good for Fijian tourism and those who depend on it.

Rachna Lal

Feedback:  rachnal@fijisun.com.fj