The tourism industry is working to prepare itself against any unforeseen shocks that may impact the global economy – in particular, that of Fiji’s biggest tourist sources, Australia and New Zealand.
At the National Economic Summit last week, Ministry of Finance permanent secretary Shiri Gounder warned that a major slowdown in the Australian and New Zealand economies could have an impact on the Fijian economy because of tourism.
Fiji recorded 60,548 visitors this March, the number a 102 per cent increase from that recorded in March, 2019.
And while things are looking up for now, Tourism Fiji CEO Brent Hill said the key to addressing any current shocks was to have a presence in as many markets as possible.
“That’s why it was great to be up in Japan and in China, we want to do more with India,” he said.
“Again, the more markets we are in, the more we’ll have access to those funds to be able to do that. We think India has a lot of potential and there’s other markets like Korea as well that are being talked about.
“We certainly want the same numbers of Kiwis and Australians, but if we can get their percentage down a bit, which means that we’ve grown the pot of people that are coming, then we shield ourself if there’s some dramatic thing happening in New Zealand or Australia.
“You can’t plan for everything, you couldn’t plan for the Russia-Ukraine conflict or the pandemic for example, but we’re trying to do as many things as we can to shield ourselves from that.”
