Diplomacy is the key to fairer travel advisories for Fiji

David Beirman says that while Caz Tebbut and the Fiji -Australia Business Council and the leaders of the Fijian travel industry are justified in their frustration towards Australia’s apparently apocalyptic travel advisory to Fiji, since the Bali bombing of October 2002, Australian travel advisories to many countries have consistently erred beyond the side of caution and towards paranoia.

However, the suggestion by Tebbut that the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) advisory on Fiji is a boycott or sanction against Fiji is as extreme and without proof as elements of the advisory itself.  One thing is certain – public denunciation of DFAT travel advisories may win Tebbut brownie points from her constituents.  It has certainly won her media headlines and may get some understandable angst off her chest but it will not change the advisories – nly diplomacy will achieve this.

DFAT has category 4 advisories applying to many countries including several with quite healthy Australian tourism numbers including Bali, Israel and now Fiji.

If it gives Tebbut any comfort, when I was the director of the Israel Tourism Office in Australia, we actually achieved a doubling of Australian tourism to Israel between 2003-2005 when at all times the DFAT advisory was an still is at category 4. 

A category 4 advisory in effect advises people to reconsider their decision to travel to country X, Y or Z can hardly be defined as a marketing asset  but good (honest) marketing can actually turn the advisory into an irrelevance, especially if it can be demonstrably proven the advisory is incorrect) is part of my business.

Overall, I have found through a great deal of experience and contact with DFAT that changing advisories involves negotiations, discretion and confidence building.

The Tebbut approach of telling the world how unfair the DFAT advisories are is virtually placing DFAT in a position in which a retraction or a revision of the advisory also involves a loss of face and no government is prepared to lose face.

This is rule number 1 in diplomacy.

It is also essential to understand what actually motivates DFAT to come up with the advisories they do and I would recommend eTN readers with a genuine interest in the issue of travel advisories to get hold of book called “Tourism in Turbulent Times” (Eds Jeff Wilks, D Pedrgast and P Leggat. Elsevier 2006) and look at the chapter by DFAT officials Ian Kemish and Jeff Roach (pp 277-189).  This gives readers a great insight into the mindset of DFAT with respect to travel advisories.  My chapter on the industry approach to travel advisories (pp 309-322) will also be helpful.

Fijians in 2000 made the same mistake they are making now. 

Instead of adopting a diplomatic approach to changing travel advisories, the tactic of public attacks only forces the other side to dig their heels in and maintain the advisories longer. 

The bottom line in dealing with government advisories is that the tourism industry has to play this game by the rules of the government which means learning the rudiments of diplomacy, something most of us in the travel industry are not that great at.

Special Fiji report by David Beirman, TravelMole’s tourism crisis and recovery correspondent