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Pacific Island countries are seeing increasing numbers of visitors from Australia and New Zealand, raising hopes the region's vital tourism industry is recovering.
According to the November issue of the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Monitor, a quarterly economic review of 14 Pacific island countries and Timor-Leste, the number of Australian tourists to the region in July and August increased by 16.1 per cent year-on-year.
This is a sharp rise after modest gains in April and May.
The number of New Zealand tourists visiting the Pacific also climbed in August, to 2.6 per cent after eight consecutive months of contraction, the publication stated.
The Monitor described the tourist figures, together with a price rise in tree crops such as cocoa and palm oil, as "positive news for the Pacific" and an indication of a recovering global economy.
However, the report warns against complacency in the region, saying that improvements in the global economy will be gradual and will take time to fully flow through to the Pacific.
"Notably, unemployment is still on the rise in the Pacific's key neighboring economies, and this will delay prospects for a much-needed turnaround in remittances," the report said.
Most Pacific economies that have contracted because of the global economic crisis may find they can only hope for a solid economic recovery by late 2010, or perhaps even 2011, it said.
The Monitor called for concerted government action to help bring about an economic recovery in the region, noting that a delayed response would adversely impact on the region's poor.
“It is estimated that an additional 50,000 people will fall below the poverty line in the Pacific in 2010 because of the crisis,” said S.Hafeez Rahman, Director General of ADB's Pacific Department.
“Governments must therefore strengthen fiscal efforts to speed up economic recovery.”
