Tourism spending in the Northern Division is currently estimated at around $290 million a year, but long-term economic modelling indicates the region’s tourism economy could reach the order of $1 billion a year by 2050.
Delivering a parliamentary response to an oral question on the future of tourism in the North under the Na Vualiku Programme, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism Viliame Gavoka said that targeted economic surge would be driven by strategic pathways focusing strictly on international visitors who stayed longer and spent more.
Under this proposed pathway, the Tourism Plan’s modelling indicates arrivals into the North will hit the order of 130,000 a year by 2050, which is nearly twice today’s level.
Mr Gavoka explained the growth was coming mainly from international visitors, expanding the market “in value and not in volume”.
To support this, he said community-based tourism where villages hosted visitors on their own terms would almost double.
However, achieving the $1bn vision depended entirely on a defined list of major infrastructural improvements.
He said the Government’s completed plan would mandate major upgrades to the airports at Matei in Taveuni and to Savusavu airports, the South Coast Road on Taveuni, and roads East and West of Labasa.
It also outlines critical installations for wastewater, electricity, and communications across Savusavu, Labasa, and Taveuni.
“The communities in the North were clear in every workshop that they do not want rapid, uncontrolled growth,” Mr Gavoka said, noting that residents demanded a future that was sustainable, regenerative, inclusive, authentic, and community driven.
He said the development would be bound to four strict principles: value ahead of volume; protection of natural and cultural assets; infrastructure first; and ensuring water, wastewater, waste energy, and connectivity were established before or alongside growth, never after it.
Mr Gavoka further revealed that while only half of current visitors to the region are international, nearly two-thirds will come from Australia and New Zealand by 2050, alongside the United States and new emerging markets.
He noted that under this targeted pathway, community-based tourism where villages host visitors on their own terms is projected to almost double.
