Being prepared has always been the key to success for any endeavour.
Good or bad, if we’ve prepared for it, we have a far better chance to better address a challenge and even overcome it.
It is the mantra behind all the behind-the-scenes planning, preparing, training and re-evaluating taking place with the tourism industry and in anticipation of the announcement that the national borders would be reopening.
And though planned and prepped; when the official announcement did come to pass, the changing requirements balanced against the increasing vaccination numbers and evolving science around COVID safety meant that even more still had to be done.
So we simply cannot say we’re quite ready yet with still so much to do and we’re certainly not easing up on the throttle even though those bookings are coming in thick and fast.
A large part of the industry has been busy prepping its properties, equipment, policies, processes and most importantly, its staff.
A smaller portion of operators is preparing to open in the first few months of next year as they negotiate the far more difficult process of reopening from being completely closed and continue working through whatever challenges have pushed their reopening out to later.
Tourism Fiji (TF) in partnership with Aspen Medical recently conducted the first of a series of planned Care Fiji Commitment (CFC) Inspectors’ Training.
This is one of the many steps in the lead up to the reopening of borders that is ensuring we are being as careful as possible and can still offer visitors an exciting Fijian holiday with their safety as a key focus.
The training comes on the back of months of webinar-based information sharing, awareness sessions and training.
These inspectors will visit all the CFC-approved accommodation providers and businesses to examine individual compliance requirements to the CFC guidelines.
This may not seem like something to make a song and dance about but getting to this point has taken a massive collaborative effort to get here and we are all keen to see these teams deployed soon to ensure we get our reopening right.
As hoteliers prepare themselves through staff training, testing their amended COVID action plans and risk assessment protocols; follow up inspections will confirm their CFC-approved status which will then be officially certified and therefore deemed ready to accept international travellers by the Ministry of Health.
Training is also in progress with demonstrations for hotels and resorts of how Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests are properly administered, the recording requirements for mandatory COVID testing, the recognition of COVID symptoms, as well as understanding how to escalate and assess associated risks.
Hospitality staff are not expected to actually test their guests, but to simply be aware of the process, the reporting documents and the logistics for accessing labs promptly so that returning visitors get on outbound flights on time.
The CFC Guideline is a comprehensive set of procedures covering all aspects of the new COVID-safe protocols that all stakeholders in the tourism industry must comply with to receive guests.
FHTA has been working closely with our Tourism Fiji partners and relevant Government bodies on the CFC to ensure that the country will be ready for reopening and that safety is being incorporated as a paramount and additional layer at all times.
But that’s not the only training happening around the country.
We have also been working with outside entities to secure more opportunities for our tourism family to restart and grow their businesses digitally.
Meta (formerly Facebook) has also reached out to the industry and is in the process of conducting specific training for local businesses on how to utilise the Facebook Business Suite and the basics of Facebook advertising to support and improve opportunities to engage and grow their online community, share helpful tools to save time and provide the basics of advertising.
Anyone interested in building their online business can quickly learn some basic but essential skills in a booming digital environment that might otherwise leave out SMEs who may not be fully realising the potential they could open up.
Everywhere around the country, businesses are putting their staff through refresher training for general and customer service skills, to ease them back into the flow of work after some 20 months of reduced hours or little to no work at all.
At the international airport, the national airline, the regulatory bodies and even the Government agencies including immigration, Customs and biosecurity; staff are getting ready for more flights to be departing and arriving with fuller loads and more frequencies.
Well if they aren’t yet, they most certainly should be preparing because the 1st of December is only a few weeks away.
There will be no room for complacency for any part of the tourism machinery and this is being constantly touched upon by managers and team leaders across the sector.
The lifting of restrictions on movement and crowd size recently with vaccination levels moving to 80 per cent has also allowed more in-person training to take place in earnest as well.
This has also allowed FHTA to finally schedule its 56th Annual General Meeting tomorrow (12th Nov) on Denarau Island and we’re happy to say that it will be a hybrid event with attendance both in-person and virtually.
It is still subject to COVID-safe protocols with space restrictions that will be strictly adhered to.
But it will be so good to see some of our tourism family under the same roof after many months of Zooming in from computer screens and communicating through emails and calls.
And we are hoping that the travel restrictions to and from maritime islands will be lifted in time to allow members to travel in from the Mamanuca Islands and even further north.
Hybrid meetings, online voting options and turning social media into your own advertising agency are just some of the many changes we are fast becoming accustomed to.
This shift in what is possible now and our adoption of changes to how we work, communicate, accepting that changes are inevitable, and that by being open to learning new things, allows us to move on to constantly evolving versions of our “new normal”.
There are many moving parts to Fiji’s international border reopening and still so much to incorporate, adapt to and work through.
Preparation time is never wasted time and we continue to prepare diligently.
