The hosting of two Investec Super Rugby tournaments and two international golf tournaments have further demonstrated the country’s ability to host top tier international sporting events.
This was revealed by the Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport permanent secretary Shaheen Ali during their virtual submissions on Tuesday, during the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 Annual Reports to the standing committee on Economic Affairs.
“When compared to 2015, the 2016-2017 financial year the event during that time, was co-sanctioned by the European Tour, which created a wider reach, with a total of 132 players from 16 different countries,” he said.
“So the subsequent year 2017, when the fourth international tournament was posted, this co-sanctioned a number of more tours actually, the ISPS and the PGA Tour of Australasia, the European tour and the Asian Tour, which bought a number of top ranked golfers like Vijay Singh, Steve Jeffries, the winner, and 130 professionals from 20 countries.
Mr Ali said these were world-class players who were attracted to the tournament.
“Since its inception on PGA international Fiji since 2014 we’ve seen significant benefits flow into the economy through these tournaments.
“It’s not only a golf tournament, per se, but it created new businesses new industries around the event.
“It also contributed to the development of new skills and also invigorated young players and the development of our students to take interest in in golf.”
The main benefit of PGA was stated to be the total media coverage value as according to Mr Ali in 2016 the Fijian brand recorded 47.6 million in media broadcast which was increased to 72.8 million in 2017 in the subsequent year.
“This represented a ratio of nine to one which meant that every dollar spent by the Fijian Government we received a value of $9 in return.”
