Visitor arrivals bounce back: Tourism Fiji

October 17, 2009 11:54:08 AM

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Visitor arrivals into Fiji bounced back strongly in August, just 6.3 percent short of the 57,609 record achieved in August 2008, says the country’s tourism marketing agency Tourism Fiji.

The agency said a “bullish” Australian performance and continuing strong growth from the New Zealand market had helped take overall international visitor arrivals to just 13.7 per cent short of the 387,464 achieved for the January-August period in 2008.

A total of 53,994 international visitors were in Fiji in August.

The figure includes a new benchmark of 22,577 visitors from Australia, 1300 more than the number of arrivals in the same period last year.

In July, a record breaking close to 25,000 Australians visited Fiji, said Tourism Fiji.

The more than 12,600 Kiwis that visited during August was also a “very strong figure”, said agency chief executive officer Josefa Tuamoto.

“But we are also experiencing regrowth in many of our other mature and developing markets - and especially China - as the global recession appears to be winding down,” said Tuamotu.

“When you take into account that we were almost 27 per cent down in the first three months of the year, to have rebuilt our international market share to come within just 13 per cent of our 2008 total is in itself a remarkable achievement for both Tourism Fiji and its very hard working industry partners,” he said.

“Based on these figures and the onset of increased Pacific Blue flights ex-Australia, the new FJ services ex-Hong Kong and the recently implemented Continental Airlines Japan-Nadi flights via Guam, Fiji looks to be gathering strength for a very strong finish to the year.”

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