‘Time to set new targets’
IT’S time to set new targets for the tourism industry as we’re close to achieving the 2021 target for $2.2 billion, according to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism permanent secretary.
While making a presentation on the ministry’s 2015 annual report to the parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs last week, Shaheen Ali said the yield from the tourism industry had already surpassed $2b, adding that tourism did much more than what was reported and it was assumed there was a little bit of under reporting when it came to tourism statistics.
Mr Ali said it was estimated that 40 per cent of GDP was connected to tourism, with one in every three jobs linked to tourism and there were also many backward and forward linkages in sectors such as transport, tour operators and food suppliers.
When questioned about the possible challenges of combining the Ministry of Tourism with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Mr Ali said as the tourism sector was a major contributor to the economy it made sense for it to be included within the ministry that handled industry and trade.
“We cannot make trade policies, we cannot make any other domestic policies without the tourism sector being considered front and centre, so once the tourism sector was included in the Ministry of Industry and Trade, we saw there were many synergies that were created, when we negotiated trade agreements, for example, and services was a component, that was one sector that we needed to promote,” he said.
Mr Ali said apart from Tourism Fiji, there were two other statutory bodies within the ministry — Investment Fiji and Film Fiji — which also had the mandate to promote brand Fiji so it made sense for the three institutions to combine their efforts and co-ordinate the resources they had to market the country consistently as a tourism destination, as an investment destination, and as a destination for film production.
According to the Fijian Tourism 2021 development plan, Government’s vision is to grow the tourism industry from $1.9b in 2017 to an industry worth $2.2b with 930,000 visitor arrivals by the end of 2021.
Fiji recorded a total of 870,309 visitor arrivals last year, as noted by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics based on data collected from embarkation and disembarkation cards by the Department of Immigration.
This means the ministry now has another two and a half years to work on increasing visitor arrivals by about 60,000 to meet the 2021 goal.