Fiji, as a tourist destination, is doing really well with visitor arrival numbers, says Tourism Fiji chief executive officer, Brent Hill.

Referring to the Fiji Visitors Bureau May 2022 provisional reports, he said: “The results we are seeing are ahead of forecast, which is wonderful news.”

The report stated that visitor arrivals for May alone was 47,813, which is 65 per cent of May 2019 or pre-COVID-19 pandemic numbers.

This is taking into consideration that many predicted a slow recovery in the tourism sector post-COVID, the pandemic has, however, accelerated the transition to a more sustainable model for the industry.

NZ arrivals in May 2022 was two-thirds of arrivals in May 2019 while Australia arrivals is more than 90 per cent for the same period.

During the COVID-19 period 2021 and 2020, visitor arrivals for the month of May stood at 400 and 709 respectively.

Mr Hill said it was very encouraging to see the continued growth, especially given May was a ‘normal’ month outside of school holidays and public holidays in Australia and New Zealand.

“It’s really strong. It’s great to see the biggest numbers yet since reopening for the USA and NZ and strong numbers still from Australia,” he said.

The news is great for our tourism industry and great for job opportunities continuing to open up for more Fijians to enter the tourism sector.

“To be 65 per cent of our 2019 record all-time high is an amazing effort considering many of our markets that we normally would expect to see like China, Hong Kong, Europe, Japan etc are either still closed or impacted by a number of factors including COVID, price of fuel and cost of living pressures,” he said.

“So, this result is really strong and speaks of the fact that Fiji is resonating really well with tourists, and the continued hard work of the key tourism industry players from Tourism Fiji to Fiji Airways and our hotels is really paying off.

“This is great news for our sector and for Fiji.”

Many governments around the world have already introduced tourism recovery plans to accelerate the sector’s recovery from the pandemic.

Tourist research

Research conducted by a UK-based travel insurance website, money.co.uk, placed Bahrain’s tourism recovery rate at about 95 per cent, indicating that the Gulf nation’s 2021 tourist numbers bounced almost all the way back to the 2019 level of 3.8 million.

The study analysed each country’s tourist numbers in 2019, before the pandemic, and compared this with figures in 2021, to measure how well a nation’s tourism industry recovered.

In second place, Albania welcomed more that 5.3 million tourists in 2021, slightly short of its 2019 numbers at 89.8 per cent.

Meanwhile Hong Kong’s tourism industry has struggled to recover the most, the research found  dropping from 24 million tourists in 2019 to about 100,000 last year, or 0.4 per cent of its pre-Covid popularity.

Japan fared a bit better than Hong Kong, with 2021 tourist volumes of about 200,000, or only 0.6 per cent of its 2019 total of 31.9 million.

The money.co.uk experts estimate that the industry is set to grow, with travellers keen to go overseas for their holidays.

Feedback:  selita.bolanavanua@fijisun.com.fj