THE Government is exploring new avenues to build on experiential and gastronomy tourism, says Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation permanent secretary Salaseini Daunabuna.
Ms Daunabuna was among the attendees of a three-day regional workshop on sustainable gastronomy tourism in Nadi that began on Monday.
She said some of the trends in travel coming up these days was not just about location, which was the sand, the sea, the sun, but the experience.
“These are also termed experiential tourism, so gastronomy tourism is a part of that concept as well where you go for the experience,” Ms Daunabuna said.
“It’s the experience in the food, so for them, they would then show us what it would look like if you are doing a lovo, what’s the story behind it, that’s what we’re interested to hear,” she said.
Ms Daunabuna said the workshop organisers had also welcomed the Government’s input.
“So for us, we do want to learn what would that look like for us, and would we need to do it in our different countries, or do we come under a South Pacific Tourism Organisation as a member state, for them to do the roadmap, and then we can take down what is relevant to us.”
She said the Government’s 2024 to 2034 National Sustainable Tourism framework had already begun some work on connecting the tourism and agriculture sectors.
“This is so crucial because the tourism sector is bringing in almost 40 percent of our gross domestic product and we do want to have one of the other biggest sectors in the economy to also contribute to what we gain from tourism.
“So, this is actually one unique forum where we are bringing everybody into one room so we can hear each other and we can share experiences, what we go through in Fiji, we may hear some other countries have similar experiences.”
Note: This article was first published on the print version of the Fiji Times dated July 2, 2025
