Over the past two years, Fiji’s tourism sector has done what many thought impossible. In 2024, we welcomed more than one million visitors—982,938 arriving by air and a further 81,854 by cruise—surpassing even the pre-pandemic high.
By July 2025, monthly arrivals hit 99,311, the strongest month on record.
For an industry that only three years ago was staring down empty resorts and grounded aircraft, vessel and transport fleets, these numbers are nothing short of extraordinary.
They also remind us that success brings new challenges.
Financially, the industry remains stable.
Tourism earnings for 2024 reached $2.53 billion, a 1.9 per cent lift on the previous year, while the June 2025 quarter alone brought in $744.2 million, up 3.8 per cent year-on-year.
Australia remains the powerhouse, contributing nearly half of those earnings at $167.5 million, with New Zealand, the United States and Europe rounding out the key markets.
Long-haul visitation is quietly growing, and cruise arrivals provide another layer of resilience with the super yacht segment quietly building its momentum.
Visitor spending is also climbing, especially during peak periods, suggesting Fiji is holding its value in a competitive global market.
But for all the records being broken, the cracks are becoming harder to ignore.
Not every month has been a win.
February 2025, for example, saw a decline compared to the same period last year, showing just how sensitive our visitor flows can be to global trends, cost pressures and shifting consumer habits – habits now heavily influenced by interest rate wariness, increasing food prices and insurance premium surges.
Australia still makes up around 45 per cent of all arrivals, which keeps us vulnerable to economic shifts and competitor destinations wooing travellers with cheaper airfares and dynamic holiday packaging or exciting new experiences.
The story is not just about numbers coming in; it is also about what is leaving and what we’re losing.
More Fijians are travelling abroad, and imports are swallowing a larger share of the industry’s supply chain.
Resorts now import over half of their fresh produce, with the reliance growing from 40 to more than 50 per cent in recent years.
That figure alone is both a red flag and an opportunity – although an opportunity still finding great difficulty to manifest itself in Fiji’s blinkered agricultural focus on sugar.
This structural blind spot shows Fiji’s agriculture policy and sector reviews have a long-standing focus on sugarcane, even as sugar production and rural participation have declined, making a rapid shift to high-value tourism-supply horticulture difficult without innovative policy and investment re-direction.
The infrastructure pinch points are equally depressing. Nadi International Airport, our main gateway, is due for another serious upgrade that is a decade behind.
Congested roads around the airport, an overworked roundabout that long outgrew its purpose, and an inconvenient railway crossing that can halt traffic at the worst possible times are not the hallmarks of a premier destination looking to lift its economic growth beyond the three per cent it struggles to achieve annually.
Utilities like water, wastewater and electricity remain strained, especially in the western division.
Areas like Wailoaloa and Votualevu, once brimming with potential for carefully planned development, are now constrained by patchwork planning and missed opportunities, leaving traffic bottlenecks, under-serviced housing and gaps in supporting infrastructure.
These issues might seem mundane compared to the excitement of new resorts or soaring visitor numbers, but they form the ceiling above us – or perhaps the bedrock we should be more focused on.
Each delay in road projects, each overloaded water system, each postponed airport extension is a handbrake on growth.
They directly affect the visitor experience, the cost of operations and the country’s ability to capture every dollar of potential revenue.
And because tourism feeds into education, healthcare, housing and wider economic stability, the opportunity cost of delay is felt well beyond resort walls.
Yet it would be unfair to say nothing is being done.
The government has listened, budgets have been allocated and commitments made.
The challenge is no longer about recognition; it is about execution.
Resources must be deployed effectively, and agencies must align their timelines with the pace of the development expectation.
If the private sector can deliver world-class resorts in under two years, the public sector must find ways to match that speed with the infrastructure that underpins it.
Fiji’s tourism story is one of extraordinary natural assets, a warm hospitality culture and a private sector that keeps innovating—yet it’s also a reminder that potential without coordination stays just that – impotent potential.
Many Pacific Island countries face the same dilemma: lifting fragile economies into the developing world brings growth opportunities and risks in equal measure.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts growth easing from 3.75 percent in 2024 to about three percent in 2025 as arrivals normalise; this is not destiny but a clear signal.
If we do not pair our vision with structural reforms—diversifying markets, strengthening local supply chains and aligning policy and investment—the hard-won momentum in visitor numbers, jobs and foreign exchange will be far more fragile than it needs to be.
Our pathway is clear if we have the required ambition to move the needle past the three per cent growth momentum to the five per cent aspiration of Government’s National Development Plan (NDP).
Invest in airports, roads, utilities and supply chains now so infrastructure matches demand and removes cost pressure on operators.
Bring farmers into the tourism value chain through guaranteed contracts, aggregation hubs and cold-chain investment so the food on hotel plates earns Fiji foreign exchange and critical jobs.
Reform urban planning in our gateway towns with faster, coordinated projects that prevent congestion and unlock new development; not ad hoc fixes that create recurring bottlenecks.
Recognise that while diversification matters, tourism remains the fastest-scaling engine for foreign exchange and employment in the near term and must be treated as a national priority.
In this instance, urgency matters.
Fiji has hit new highs and proven its resilience, but success has made our structural limits painfully visible.
Let’s act now with focused, well-resourced programs and public-private alignment.
We can raise the ceiling on growth, embed deeper value locally and build a tourism economy that is resilient and inclusive.
Hesitate and the likely outcomes are clear: momentum stalls, operating costs rise and rival destinations capture market share.
We absolutely must not allow that to happen. With government commitment, private sector innovation and community engagement, Fiji can unlock its next chapter. We know what needs to be done.
The task now is to turn promises into projects and potential into performance.
Tourism has carried us this far.
The question is how much further it can take us and whether we have the collective will and energy to match our natural gifts with the infrastructure, planning, and investment they deserve.
