There is not enough tourism marketing that target the domestic tourism market, said Captain Cook Cruises brand, marketing, and public relations executive Andhy Blake.
“What I’ve seen is the lack of exposure for some of the properties and some of the brands because our key market is abroad,” Mr Blake told The Fiji Times.
“We focus on marketing on what we call our ‘feeder markets’, Australia and New Zealand is our feeder markets, and then we have markets in North America and Asia and Europe.
“Tourism Fiji does a great job in marketing our destinations, marketing Fiji and all our experiences to international tourists, whereas for the locals, there is not enough marketing.”
Mr Blake said the lack of emphasis on the local market here was a challenge that needed to be addressed.
“Talking to the locals to tell them about our experiences. Some of them haven’t heard of our experiences because there’s no marketing. I mean, there is social media, but not everyone would go on social media to look for tourism experiences.”
He said marketing of tourism experiences to locals would help increase Fiji’s domestic tourism.
In 2021, a joint study conducted by the Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association and Australia’s Market Development Facility on Fiji’s domestic tourism found that there was a need for tourism operators to develop targeted packages and strategies that would attract local tourists.
The study also found that majority of the domestic tourists were made up by expatriates and the most popular activity enjoyed by local tourists were the packaged day cruises.
