55,000 Visitors Expected by Jan End

Tourism Fiji is expecting 55,000 visitors to Fiji by the end of January thanks to its ‘Open for Happiness’ campaign.

By the end of this year, 20,000 are expected to jet into the country with the remaining expected for January.

From next week, visitors from Singapore are expected.

This was revealed by Tourism Fiji chief executive officer Brent Hill during the final webinar for 2021 with industry stakeholders yesterday.

Fiji Airways is doing the bulk of flights out of Australia and New Zealand.

Air New Zealand, Qantas and yesterday Virgin Australia also jetted in with visitors.

Over the weekend Jetstar will do the same.

Mr Hill said: “It’s great. It’s a busy time of year and we’re certainly managing it well.”

10,000 visitors have so far arrived into the country since Fiji opened its borders on December 1.

Crackdown

During the webinar it was also found that some operators, had counterfeited the Care Fiji Commitment certificate.

It was found that the operators used fake stickers to lure tourists.

Mr Brent said it was unfortunate and assured a crackdown on this operation.

“The risk there is that they’re trying to trick the tourists in effect,” Mr Hill said.

“They’re not actually accredited. They won’t be able to follow the protocol because they won’t know the protocol."

“And then they’re putting themselves at risk and they’re putting tourists at risk."

“We can’t accept that.

“We just want people to do the right thing.”

When asked how many cases they had come across, he said it was ‘not common’.

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