A Tale of Two South Pacific Tourism Crises

The South Pacific has become known in recent years as the arc of instability to Australia’s  north and NE, with not since WWII  have Australian military and police forces been committed to so many island nations and in such large deployments in our neighbourhood, with Timor L’Este, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and now Tonga causing Australia concern.

The situation in Fiji which was predicted to erupt into a military coup remains politically tense but there is little sign of the much predicted coup, but the uncertainty in Fiji already  having a significant and to date negative impact on forward bookings for the early months of 2007, with this being a classic case of a crisis.of perception.

To their credit, The Fijian tourism authorities and the Fijian Visitors Bureau are already well geared up to manage this problem, having organised  massive familiarisation trips for both Australian and New Zealand travel agents which enables the agents  to see Fiji for themselves and pass on their first  hand observations to both their colleagues and clients and also hosting a far larger than usual contingent of travel writers from their key source markets. 

First hand testimonials from credible sources are a critical tactic in restoring confidence to destinations affected by negative perceptions. Hopefully, if Australian DFAT officials can be tempted to look outside their diplomatic compounds they may find things in Fiji are somewhat better than the wording of the current travel advisories,

I will be in Fiji between Dec 3-9  running two intensive crisis and recovery management seminars on behalf of the Tourism and Hospitality Department of the Training and Productivity Authority of Fiji for the leadership of the Fijian tourism industry  and some of Fiji’s neighbouring countries.

My Fijian colleagues and I have made a special effort to invite tourism leaders from Tonga to these seminars as they have a very real and severe tourism crisis with which they have to deal.

Unlike the current situation in Fiji where political uncertainty has clouded hitherto positive perceptions of Fiji, the outbreak of violence in Tonga was sudden, savage and unexpected, with Tonga certainly going through a process of political change as the monarchy devolves more power to parliament and representative democracy is slowly gaining a foothold in a traditionally stratified and monarchical society.

The bloody outbreaks in Nuku’alofa late last week were, from all reports fuelled more by alcohol and a lust for plunder than any zeal for democratic reform but the short and intense burst of violence has greatly tarnished the image of one of the most traditionally  peaceful island nations in the Pacific.

Tonga’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism and to date there has been minimal evidence that Tongan tourism authorities have even begun to address the events which must have shocked the local tourism industry to its core. 

Certainly a visit to Tonga’s official tourism website the Tongan Visitors Bureau tells the world that nothing is wrong and nothing has changed, demonstrating is a real problem of poor crisis management as the tourism web site should already have been addressing the changed realities from the time of the outbreaks.

Unfortunately Tonga’s tourism industry cannot afford the luxury reacting to the current realities at Pacific pace, as there is a genuine crisis and a few hours of violence in the capital has radically damaged perceptions of destination Tonga amongst its traditional Australian and New Zealand source markets. 

Although some newspaper reports state that tourism will take 20 years to recover, it can recover in a matter of months if Tonga’s tourism industry leadership and the government get their act together immediately and first and foremost restores order in Tonga and undertake the basics of crisis and recovery management which include, confidence rebuilding for consumers and travel sellers in key source markets, incentives, and a media campaign which honestly demonstrates that Tonga is ready to welcome tourists in safety and security.

A report by David Beirman, TravelMole’s Tourism Crisis and Recovery Correspondent and the Director of Struan & Associates, Tourism Crisis and Recovery Specialists [email protected]