A column ran in these pages recently arguing that Fiji’s tourism industry is trapped in a cycle of dependency, living off subsidy, underpaying landowners, dodging environmental obligations and lobbying rather than fixing itself. It was confidently written and dressed up in the language of structural economics.
It was also wrong on nearly every substantive point, and worth correcting on the public record.
Start with the claim that tourism enjoys a free ride on public infrastructure while taxpayers foot the bill.
Hotels and tour operators already pay 12.5 per cent VAT, a $200 departure tax on every outbound visitor, and from September a new 5 per cent Tourism Services Tax on turnover above $2million, expected to raise around $70m for Fiji Airways.
Together, the effective tax load on tourism services sits well above 20 per cent before council rates, work permits, environmental fees, licensing, duty and wages are even counted.
This is one of the more heavily taxed sectors in the country, and it has been here before.
Before the pandemic, VAT, a service turnover tax and the Environment and Climate Adaptation Levy stacked together pushed the combined rate close to 25 per cent, and Government’s own baseline for the National Sustainable Tourism Framework found that burden eroded margins so severely that reinvestment stalled and resorts fell into disrepair.
That is the actual lesson of recent history: overtax this sector and the product deteriorates.
It is evidence of the opposite of a free ride.
The 1.25m visitor, $4billion target was also dismissed as reckless volume chasing pushed by industry.
It is in fact a whole-of-Government aspiration developed with Tourism Fiji and the Ministry of Tourism as part of national economic planning, not an industry wish list.
Tourism underpins close to forty per cent of GDP and well over 100,000 jobs, with 2025 earnings near $2.8b.
FHTA has said publicly and repeatedly that Fiji should build toward higher-value, longer-stay travellers rather than pure arrival numbers, which makes it an odd target for a claim that the industry refuses to think beyond volume.
The suggestion that hospitality has failed to invest in its own infrastructure autonomy does not survive contact with what is happening on the ground.
Resorts across the country, including remote and off-grid properties in the Yasawas, have spent the past year fitting solar arrays and battery storage to reduce dependence on diesel and the public grid.
One recently completed island project alone installed more than 1700 solar panels and eight battery units, cutting diesel use by roughly half this year, targeting 70 to 75 per cent by the end of 2027.
None of this was forced by regulation.
It happened because operators recognised energy security is now a competitiveness issue, aided by Government’s own capital write-offs for renewable investment.
The 6 per cent land-value figure quoted for what landowners receive belongs to agricultural leases issued under the Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Act, the legislation governing cane and market garden land, not tourism.
Commercial and tourism leases issued by the iTaukei Land Trust Board operate on a different, openly negotiated basis, combining an annual percentage of unimproved land value with a separate share of the venture’s actual turnover, reviewed periodically rather than fixed forever.
TLTB has publicly confirmed tourism leases provide some of the highest land tenure payments of any lease category, alongside education, infrastructure and employment benefits for the wider community.
On the accusation that the workforce is disposable and undertrained, the record tells a different story.
Fiji National University’s College of Business, Hospitality and Tourism Studies runs more than 20 technical and vocational programs feeding this sector, alongside apprenticeship schemes and individual properties’ own graduate pipelines.
Wages and retention remain a genuine challenge, and we work hard to keep lifting our skills so we can compete for a professional workforce in high demand across our region.
Sustainability is not marketing dressing either.
Fiji has a national target of 90 per cent renewable electricity generation, and hotels are building toward it, not waiting for it, alongside water treatment upgrades, waste reduction and marine protection efforts.
None of this is because the industry discovered its conscience overnight.
It is because guests, particularly in the higher-value segments this sector prefers, increasingly book on that strength. Nor does tourism only show up in policy debates after budgets are read.
FHTA has made formal submissions on VAT settings, turnover tax structures and investment incentives well before budget day, and engaged at clause level on the Commercial Use of Marine Areas Bill, the Liquor Act, the Security Industries Act, the Tourism Act, the Civil Aviation Bill and the Consumer Commission Bill, exactly the kind of quiet, data-driven engagement this sector has sustained for years.
None of this is to say the sector has nothing to improve.
Economic leakage through imported inputs is real and worth serious conversation, and closing that gap needs investment on both sides, not just a directive to hotels to buy local.
Balance sheet resilience also matters, after a pandemic that emptied every property in the country overnight and left highly leveraged businesses with nothing to absorb the shock.
The author of that column is, by his own description, a highly credentialled meteorologist, and Fiji is fortunate to have experts of that calibre examining our weather systems and climate risk.
But forecasting a cyclone and understanding hotel lease economics, tax incidence and destination marketing are different disciplines entirely, and expertise in one does not transfer to the other simply because both involve reading data.
Tourism remains the largest single contributor to Fiji’s economy, underpinning close to 40 per cent of GDP and well over 100,000 jobs.
An industry carrying that weight deserves scrutiny built on accurate evidence, not borrowed authority from an unrelated field.
This industry is always ready for that conversation.
On the facts.
Every time.
FANTASHA LOCKINGTON is the CEO of Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association. The views expressed are not necessarily those of The Fiji Times. To share a comment or thoughts on the article, please send email to info@fhta.com.fj
