visitor arrivals

SPTO reports more visitors in Pacific in 2018

The organisation released its inaugural Pacific Tourism Forecast this week which showed about 40,000 more visitors arrived in the region last year - 38,941 more than 2017.

It attributed the growth to a positive global tourism trend, regional and national tourism marketing, improved connectivity and infrastructure development.

The organisation said it expects tourist numbers will grow by 3.3 percent in 2019 and each year until 2024.

     

Strong visitor growth continues in the Pacific region

Fiji continues to be the top destination in the region.

Arrivals to the organisation's member countries provisionally reached over 460,000 in the March quarter of 2018.

The latest quarterly review reports visitors to the Asia and Pacific region were up 8.2 percent from 7.3 percent in the December quarter.

The latest figures outperformed last March's quarter by about 6 percent.

CEO Chris Cocker said Fiji continues to be the top destination with 36.7 percent of visitors followed by French Polynesia at 9.7 percent, Palau on 7.3 and PNG 7.2.

Decline in visitor arrivals to Vanuatu in March quarter 2017

According to the Vanuatu National Statistics Office, the decrease was reflected in the drop in the cruise ship visitors to the country.

Visitor arrivals by air made up 23% of all international visitors with a total of 20, 923 in the March quarter 2017.

This indicated an increase of 24% over the same period in 2016. However, this fell over the previous quarter.

Half of the tourists who arrived by air were Australians.