THERE are times in an industry’s life when you have to step back and ask whether the rules we operate under still reflect the country we have become.

For Fiji’s tourism sector, that moment arrived many years ago in relation to our liquor laws.

Tourism is no longer in its adolescence.

It is a mature, globally competitive force that must fight hard to counter the inherent challenges of location, costs, and geopolitical impacts that abound in a Pacific Island Country, while successfully navigating the shifting tides of sustainability, climate resilience and evolving traveller expectations.

It must balance growth with stewardship – protecting fragile ecosystems while expanding infrastructure, ensuring affordability while maintaining quality, and embracing innovation without losing cultural authenticity.

The sector’s maturity demands agility: adapting to global shocks, leveraging digital transformation and aligning policy with long-term resilience.

Hotels and resorts in Fiji are among the most heavily regulated businesses in the country—a reality that is embraced rather than resisted.

When you welcome guests from across the world into your vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or property, your responsibilities extend far beyond the boundaries of your business premises.

You are entrusted with their safety, their well-being, and, ultimately, the reputation of Fiji as a destination.

But regulation and enforcement are one-sided.

Fiji’s liquor regulatory framework is at odds with the intention.

It has remained so for decades despite a consistent plea to address the anomalies and inconsistencies with license renewals, paperwork requirements between the regulatory agencies involved, processing timelines, fee applications and final approvals.

It must be said at this point that these inconsistencies are certainly not restricted to liquor licensing and tourism, but are generally considered the “normal”, overly complicated expectations for doing business in Fiji.

An area that has not been able to see any real improvement because regulatory agencies appear unable to change mindsets for process improvements.

With well-meaning digital improvements leaving out the end-users of the systems being designed, the applicants themselves are.

Our Liquor Act has been amended periodically since 2006, yet the licensing renewal process remains cumbersome, repetitive and uneven in practice.

Hotels must still navigate a multi–layered sequence of clearances—from the Police, the National Fire Authority, Occupational Health and Safety, and the health authorities—before they can even start the application for the actual liquor licence renewal.

Each approval can only proceed once the previous agency has signed off, creating a slow, linear process with no room for parallel assessment or document sharing.

Every year, operators are required to upload the same documents to each agency in the chain, even though nothing material has changed.

No agency shares information with another, and no part of the system recognises that a clearance already granted means the underlying documents have been vetted and approved.

The result is a renewal process that is administratively heavy, time–consuming and unnecessarily duplicative—placing avoidable strain on both operators and regulators.

A digital portal intended to streamline the licensing process has, in practice, introduced new layers of duplication and inconsistency. Many agencies have not trained new staff on how to use the online portal, leading to uneven interpretations of requirements and delays caused by inconsistent regulatory oversight.

The result is a process that is neither faster nor simpler—it is simply digitalised bureaucracy.

One example illustrates the scale of the problem.

Recently, a health inspector unfamiliar with hotel bar operations misinterpreted a designated cocktail–preparation area as a “brewing laboratory” for producing alcohol. On that basis, she insisted that the hotel—built 21 years earlier—produce stamped architectural floor plans.

Neither the hotel, the municipal council, nor the Department of Town & Country Planning had copies of those plans, yet the requirement was enforced.

Nobody – including her superiors – could rectify the misinterpretation, so the hotel engineers drew up the plan again and had the plan approved in the usual (2 weeks) manner.

The liquor licence renewal that began in June 2025 was not approved until February 2026, by which time the 2026 renewal cycle had already begun.

For clarity – hotels do not brew their own alcohol. They do not have the space, the expertise, the time or the resources to deviate from their core business – providing accommodation with food and beverage services.

To add to the already convoluted licensing process, the autonomy of divisional liquor tribunals creates significant inconsistencies.

Documentary requirements vary across divisions: in the Western Division, applicants must submit up to 17 documents to obtain a liquor licence and are initially granted only a three–month “conditional licence.”

A full licence is issued only after the tribunal convenes—typically once 100 applications have been received.

The one advantage is that hotels in the West can then pay for a three–year licence.

By contrast, hotels in the Central Division submit just 12 documents, receive their full licence immediately, but only for a one–year term.

The disparities extend further.

Hotels in the West must secure an annual “report” from their divisional District Office, while those in the Central Division face no such requirement. Across both divisions, the number of inspections is extensive:

A health inspection report (from rural authority or town council)

A health certificate (Ministry of Health)

An NFA report

An OHS report

A Rokotui or District Office report

Police clearance for the hotel general manager

A police “physical” report (to confirm the hotel still exists?)

Valid ID of the licensee

Tax compliance certificate for the business

Company registration documents

The previous liquor licence (we assume they cannot track a license once approved)

Additionally, all photocopied documents prepared for portal submission must be certified by a Commissioner of Oaths, and applicants must show evidence that they advertised their intention to reapply in the newspapers.

Practical challenges compound the burden. Inspectors often require transport, refreshments, or meals, as hotels are located outside urban centres, along coasts, or on maritime islands. Government transport pools are unreliable or unavailable, and liquor licensing inspections are not considered a priority when agency staff request vehicles. The common “no transport” excuse is therefore a routine cause of delays.

The inconsistencies extend even further. While agencies have promoted the digitisation of processes, many failed to modernise their payment systems, creating a fragmented and often frustrating experience for operators.

Some agencies accept online payments—but still require a separate emailed remittance advice—while others continue to insist on cash or bank cheques, forcing businesses to move between digital and manual systems for a single licence renewal.

This patchwork approach undermines the very efficiency digitisation was meant to deliver.

Instead of a streamlined, end–to–end online process, operators face a hybrid system where digital submissions coexist with outdated payment requirements, adding time, cost, and unnecessary administrative burden.

A unified, cross–agency digital payment and clearance platform would eliminate these inconsistencies.

It would allow operators to submit documents once, make payments through a single secure portal, and enable agencies to access shared information in real time—reducing duplication, improving accountability, and restoring confidence in the regulatory process.

Then there is the imbalance.

Across our towns and peri-urban areas, liquor outlets operate in proximity to residential neighbourhoods.

It is not uncommon to see public drinking taking place immediately outside or behind these premises.

The social consequences are visible.

Families deal with noise and disorder.

Local businesses see customers deterred.

Police resources are stretched responding to recurring disturbances.

This plays out daily in communities around the country. When enforcement is reactive and inconsistent, the burden falls back on residents, councils and, indirectly, on the destination’s reputation.

At the same time, compliant operators who are meeting every requirement placed upon them are left asking a simple question: if we are paying higher fees, adhering to stricter conditions and renewing licences with full documentation, why are others dealing in the same product not subject to equivalent scrutiny?

Other tourism-driven island economies have confronted this challenge and adapted.

In Mauritius, hotels benefit from licensing conditions that recognise their role in the tourism economy, with flexible trading hours for residents and a transparent objection process that allows communities to be heard.

In Seychelles, zoning controls limit new licences in sensitive areas while prioritising hotels and restaurants in tourism zones. In Bali, local adaptations to national alcohol regulations streamline licensing for tourism operators while maintaining oversight through digital systems and inspections.

None of these jurisdictions has abandoned regulation. On the contrary, they have modernised it. They have aligned licensing frameworks with tourism strategy and community protection.

The tourism industry contributes significantly to government revenue through taxes, levies and licence fees.

When we pay for a liquor licence, we expect that the system it funds will be robust, fair and consistently applied.

We expect that every other operator dealing in alcohol is equally licensed, equally scrutinised and equally accountable.

A level playing field is not a privilege. It is the foundation of good governance.