ABC talks with Jo Tuamato of the Fiji Visitor’s Bureau
This article has been reproduced from the ABC.
ELEANOR HALL: Fiji’s tourism industry is already feeling the effects of the standoff between the military and the Government.
Fiji’s tourism industry is expected to earn around $AUD 750 million from tourism next year.
But fears of a coup have prompted the Australian Government to upgrade travel warnings, and tourist numbers are dropping off.
Jo Tuamoto is from the Fiji Visitors’ Bureau, and he’s been speaking to Emily Bourke saying that hotels are already losing bookings.
JO TUAMOTO: We’ve been having, you know, some very bad feedback particularly out of Australia and New Zealand since the upgrading of the travel advisory. Some of our partners, as you know in Australia, now have almost, like, stopped selling Fiji, and that impact on the country will be felt in the next couple of weeks.
EMILY BOURKE: And you’re already seeing that?
JO TUAMOTO: Yes, we’re already see that from our partners, that there has been slowness in terms of forward bookings for the first quarter, even up to June next year. And I am not that confident that we will be able to achieve the numbers that we projected ourselves for this year and even next year.
EMILY BOURKE: The travel warnings that have been issued to Australians urge people not to go to Fiji because of a volatile security situation.
What do you make of that assessment, and how do you think that’s going to affect the industry?
JO TUAMOTO: I think the level of the travel advisories that the Australians and the Kiwis have put up, we really can’t do much about it because it’s an Australian and New Zealand decision, that they have… they must have done their own assessment.
But the fact of the matter is that it’s going to really ruin, to a certain extent, the industry because of the… almost like our top partners in Australia, our wholesalers are now going to do a stop sale, because they can’t risk their people coming down to Fiji.
EMILY BOURKE: There are reports that there could be up to 50,000 jobs lost in Fiji’s tourism sector. Do you think that’s an accurate estimate?
JO TUAMOTO: 50,000 is actually the direct and indirect people working in the tourism industry, that’s the total.
So, I don’t know whether that would be…. that would be the worst-case scenario which I don’t want to look at, but there will be substantial job losses because of these things.
I hope that peace, in part, is resolved so that the travel advisory is lifted. We can go back and start putting food on the table for some of our hotel workers.
ELEANOR HALL: That’s Jo Tuamoto from the Fiji Visitors’ Bureau speaking to Emily Bourke.
Report by The Mole reproduced from the ABC
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