FIJI’S Tourism Minister Faiyaz Koya says a digitally advanced tourism sector can improve local community empowerment and efficient resource management, among other important development objectives.
Speaking at the 2018 World Tourism Day Seminar in Rakiraki, Mr Koya underscored the importance of digitalisation in enhancing service delivery in the lucrative tourism sector.
“This is why the Fijian Government has continued investments in the development of the ICT sector,” he said.
“This financial year alone, a total of $40million will be used for projects, such as Digital Government Transformation for the development of mobile applications and business process re-engineering, Free Wi-Fi hotspots, promoting electronic transactions – no customer fees for debit card POS transactions, subsidising PSO machines and merchants’ fees, to name a few.”
World Tourism Day is celebrated all over the world on 27 September each year. The day aims to create awareness on the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic values.
This year’s, World Tourism Day theme “Tourism and the Digital Transformation” highlights the need for investment in disruptive digital technologies.
Mr Koya said the seminar aimed to encourage inclusive participation of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the tourism sector.
“The workshop is a means to provide MSME tourism operators, information on the changing global trends in terms of marketing tourism products to have increased participation in the Fijian Tourism Industry,” he said.
“Like tourism, technology is very dynamic and equally vibrant. It is essentially about connecting people and places and today, digitalisation has left no segment of the travel ecosystem untouched. Therefore, we must embrace it to enhance service delivery and be better connected to our customers.”
Mr Koya also urged participants to learn as much from presentations and discussions.
“Utilise the experts in this Seminar to understand the diverse platforms for marketing and communication to effectively grow your markets and business,” he said.
“Maximise the use of relevant technology to improve your service delivery and consequently be able to meet consumer demands.”
