Almost a million visitors visited our shores in 2023, boosting our tourism earning to around $3.5billion.
Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association chief executive officer Fantasha Lockington highlighted this at the Fiji OHS conference held at the Pearl Resort in Pacific Harbour last Friday.
“A total spend from visitors, not just purchasing a ticket, staying in a hotel, but eating and drinking, food and beverages, buying souvenirs, getting entertained, is around $3.5b,” Ms Lockinton said.
“So, that was pretty good all in all.”
She said they were doing their best to get this kind of outcome.
“We made sure that we are meeting some of the great expectations of our potential visitors.
“So, this is the kind of spend that Tourism Fiji who is the destination marketers would spend overseas making sure that people are well aware of where Fiji is and how they can get there. And when you do come here, how much you can be entertained and enjoy. $50million is probably spent by Fiji Airways. It goes further and it makes sure that it can fill up the very new planes that it has just taken delivery of over the last few years.”
Ms Lockington said the industry in total spends about $150m collectively on an annual basis to market Fiji in the world.
“They talk about what Fiji is all about in terms of tourism destination.
“You all heard about the Lonely Planet. It has Fiji constantly on its list of happiest countries. And it gives 10 reasons consistently about why Fiji is such a happy country.
“If you go around asking people, whether you’re in the room or outside or anywhere you go in Fiji and you ask — are you happy, the most likely responses most people will give is ‘yes’.
“Eighty-nine (89) per cent of our locals agree that they are happy.”
