VTO BUDGET CUTS IMPACT ARRIVALS
THE Government of Vanuatu must surely be ruing a decision to slash the budget for the country’s marketing arm, with visitor numbers from Australia levelling off after months of ongoing growth. About 12 months ago, the Vanuatu Tourism Office (VTO) was told by the country’s government to tighten its belt and trim its brand awareness. The theory, according to Vanuatu Tourism Office’s general manager Linda Kalpoi, was that the government felt Vanuatu had established a sound reputation and awareness in the marketplace, and cutting funds wouldn’t hurt tourism. At the Tok Tok Vanuatu 2014 tourism exchange held in Port Vila last month, Tourism Minister Ham Lini Vanuaroroa pledged support for the trade, announcing he would seek to have VTO’S budget re-energised. “This year tourism arrivals by air seem to have plateaued and one contributing factor is the low level of investment in marketing of the destination. Therefore, I as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism, will do my very best to seek an increase to the VTO 2015 budget,” he told delegates at the official opening of the tradeshow. Questioned as to how much the budget would be increased, Vanuaroroa would not specify an exact figure. Kalpoli told travelbulletin it was important the government had recognised the impact of tourism funding. “We are very hopeful and we’ve heard a lot of talk from the government about increasing the budget of destination marketing, but we are yet to see it eventuate,” she said. “I think one of the key factors in the downturn, as mentioned by Deputy Prime Minister Vanuaroroa, is we had a reduced budget last year, so we pulled back a lot of our advertising campaigns that we should have been pushing.” She confirmed VTO’S budget had been wound back twenty percent. “With that decision, it has limited our level