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Fiji’s tourist industry experienced a 23.7 per cent drop in visitor arrivals in the first quarter of 2009, according to figures released by the national tourism office.
Tourism Fiji said it recorded a total of 100,340 arrivals compared to 131,576 recorded for the same period in March 2008.
However, it remained upbeat that the numbers compared well with 2007 figures, which was a record-breaking year for Fiji and it said this indicated that Fiji was retaining its critical visitor base.
In the first quarter of 2007, Fiji recorded an international visitor arrival of 110,279 so this year’s first quarter results are just 9939 short of that achievement.
“Obviously coming off a very strong 2008 performance we would have liked to seen a bigger result,” said Tourism Fiji’s chief executive officer Josefa Tuamoto.
“But when you consider the impact the January floods had on the first few weeks of the year and the ongoing economic environment, we are pleased to see the 2009 figure surpass the 2007 result, one of our strongest ever years on record.”
Tuamoto said while numbers from Fiji’s major source markets - Australia, New Zealand
and the US – were still down, they were starting to show slight improvements on a
month on month basis.
Visitor arrivals from Japan and China increased by 4.9 per cent and plus 12.7 per cent respectively, which Tuamoto said was very encouraging.
