Tourists are now demanding a level of sustainability in terms of protecting the environment, says Tourism Fiji CEO Brent Hill.
He said they needed to step up to these demands.
“What I am very conscious of – looking at around the world – you see social media images of other tourism destinations like Fiji where people are posting images of water bringing in plastic bottles and how difficult that can be,” he said.
“From my perspective is as we look at those countries we can do something now to prevent that from being us because wouldn’t it be a tragedy if we did nothing and a tourist in two years’ time went down to Natadola and took videos of plastic bottles in the surf.
“It’s better to put in place a program where we can actually do something about it and keep Fiji as beautiful and pristine as we want it to be, but that has an education component.”
He said Tourism Fiji would like to work with tourism properties in educating tourists and staff members the importance of waste management and recycling.
“From a tourism perspective we would like to say to people ‘come and enjoy, but recycle so work with tourism properties to recycle your Fiji Water or Fiji Gold’ and that filters down to the local population as well.
“Potentially all of the staff who work in resorts that have recycling programs will go home and potentially rather than just throwing their rubbish in the bin or worse dumping them onto the ground, they will choose to recycle.”
Tourism Fiji is a partner in the Pacific Recycling Foundation’s aim to promote and raise awareness on recycling and waste management in Fiji and the Pacific region.
