The tourism industry is critical for Fiji’s recovery given the dominance of the industry throughout the wider economy and because it accounts of about 40 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), says Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
Speaking in Parliament on Monday, he said Fiji’s 12.4 per cent GDP growth projection was predicated on the assumption that visitor arrivals would reach around 55 per cent of pre-pandemic arrivals this year.
“This revised forecast is upward biased, meaning essentially the actual GDP growth for 2022 could be much higher than what is projected,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.
“That is because we are likely to surpass our visitor arrivals target for the year with the current trajectory of tourism inflows is maintained.”
The A-G said visitor arrivals in July 2022 stood at 78,638 which was 81.6 per cent of July 2019 levels and total cumulative arrivals from January to July 2022 was 284,167 — which was 56.4 per cent of arrivals for the same period in 2019.
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said Australia’s visitor arrivals in July this year was 37,005 — which has already surpassed 2019 July levels which is 36,799 (100.6 per cent higher).
He said similarly, New Zealand arrivals were 90.3 per cent of July 2019 levels while US arrivals were 93.6 per cent.
