Fiji and other Pacific Island Countries (PICS) need to do more to attract Japanese tourists to their shores.
These were the words of Pacific Island Centre director Akiko Takahashi as she described the challenges faced in luring Japanese tourists towards the small island nations for a holiday.
“Most tourists in Japan have preferred other countries that have frequent flights and shorter distances,” she said.
“Fiji has two direct flights a week from Nadi to Narita, but not many Japanese tourists travel to Fiji because of the distance and it doesn’t have frequent direct flights.
“We must remember that our tourists are mostly the older aged group so long flights is not suitable for them.”
She said many promotions have been done in Japan to market Fiji and other Pacific island nations as a tourist destination, but the results have not been up to expectation.
“We had assisted with the promotion of products from the Pacific Island nations including tourism, but we have not seen many changes.”
“So we need to do more or think of ways to attract Japanese tourists to these island nations.”
Ms Takahishi said the centre has been in existence for the past 27 years, but not many in the island nations know about them.
