Air Pacific is confident things are looking up!

The Mole spoke with Greg McCarthy, GM Sales and Marketing for Air Pacific this morning to gain some insight into how Air Pacific was getting on post coup, post the travel advisory from Aus being reduced and post the Fiji advertising campaign that kicked off in Australia over the weekend and this is what he said.

“The reduction of the level of the travel advisory from Australia has been a massive boost for us and for the whole industry in Fiji, with our intakes jumping last week with the advertising campaign lifting demand with our offers and the others in the market making a big difference which is good news for all of us.”

“The first two weeks of January, which are prime weeks when travellers can combine leave with Christmas and get an extended break from work are always solid and it was good to see them remain that way, even allowing for the coup and that gives us confidence moving forward.”

“Our business traditionally drops away in last week in January and in February and unfortunately we are still 20% down on the same position for Feb and March last year but we are optimistic that the lowering of the travel advisory and the deals in the market place will change some of that but it may be just too difficult to reach our targets for February and March and we recognise that recovery from everything that has happened will take time.” 

“You also need to remember that we have not stopped flying at all during all of this time!

“April at this stage is looking better with Easter at the front end and while May is looking slow, we have time to catch up but it is behind where it was last year.”

“While we have our own wholesale operation, Air Pacific Holidays which goes out through Qantas Holidays, we mainly package with other wholesalers and Creative, Fiji Specialist Holidays and Qantas Holidays have in particularly really kicked in with them and most of the major wholesalers doing well with bookings.”

“Of course our $199 kids and all inclusive round trip fare of $600 for adults compared to the normal fares for a child $500 and adults over $650 are all helping, the important thing for the trade to remember is that is that all of the industry here in Fiji has really come to the party with amazing land deals and when you put those together with air, the overall package deals are practically unbelievable, but they are totally real – Fiji will never be better value than it is today!”

“For us all as operators and the industry here in Fiji, the reduction in the level of the Australian travel advisory in particular was vitally important for the industry here many of our distribution in Australia and other countries, very wary to recommend Fiji with the advisories in place.”  “You may even have been able to hear the massive big sigh of relief from the industry here in Sydney!”

“I must stress though that the industry is still very concerned about the levels of bookings for Feb and March and are all hoping that the campaigns in market now will bring good numbers in.”

“I for one will be waiting with baited breath to see our reports on Monday to see if the ads in Australia are building up our bookings and we are optimistic that there will significant improvements.”

“The more seasoned and regular travellers that know Fiji are still travelling, but we need to continue to drive higher levels of business and we believe that we have come up with the right product at the right price.”

“We even have an element of the market that is going on holiday and choosing to travel in business because the trade up cost is not huge and while our Pacific Voyager (Economy) class is great our Tabua Class (Business) does offer greater comfort, with 50% of our Tabua passengers on holiday.”  “I recommend that agents should look at Tabua Class for their clients and we even have a space available upgrade deal that that they can pay for at the airport at check in.”

Thank you Greg and The Mole looks forward to speaking with you next week to see how things are going and hopefully that they will be getting even better!

Special Fiji Report by The Mole