There was an increase of 4,922 in foreign visitor arrivals to Fiji last month compared to a year earlier, according to a monthly Fiji Bureau of Statistics report.

A total of 48,798 compared to 43, 876  in February last year – an increase of  11.2 per cent.

A majority 72.4 per cent came to the country for holiday purposes.

Tourism plays a major role in the economy, according to Investment Fiji.

The sector contributes 17 per cent to national Gross Domestic Product and enables the employment to around 40,000 people.

In 2012, it is estimated that gross earnings from the tourism industry was $1.3bn, which is about 17.8 percent of GDP.

Visitors arrivals from China increased from 2,486 to 6,567; Australia from 1,411 to 17,041; New Zealand  from 413 to 6,641;the United States of America jumped up from 413  to 5,951;Continential Europe from 387 to 2,682; Rest of Asia from 173 to 1,678 and Canada from 97 to 993.

The data is collected from the immigration system and released monthly.

While there was a significant drop in visiotr arrivals from 62,248 this January, statistics show that this was a normal trend in February.

The statistics reported 68.8 per cent of visitors fell within the age range of 25-64, 10.3 per cent were children, 11.3 per cent between the ages of 15-24 and 10 per cent of over 65s.

Edited by Sheldon Chanel