Postpone NZ tourism campaigns says says Fiji Hoteliers Association president Dixon Seeto
The Fiji Visitors Bureau should postpone all its tourism campaign in New Zealand and save the funds, says Fiji Hoteliers Association president Dixon Seeto, saying, we needed to be very careful how we spend money now.
“It would have an adverse effect on what should be done but with the traditional peak period we expect to see an improvement in the situation,” Mr Seeto said.
He said the weather in New Zealand was much colder now and there had been varying reports on the issue in NZ too.
On Saturday, Fiji Visitors Bureau CEO Bill Gavoka said the bureau lost out $NZ25,000 ($F30,336.16) in penalty payments to the New Zealand print media for pulling out tourism advertisements for Friday and Saturday’s issues but luckily they could defer the television advertisements to a later date and did not have to pay any penalty charges.
“The tourism campaign on the advertisement was supposed to run for three weeks and with this decision made by the interim administration, we had to pull it out in the first week which is really not good,” Mr Gavoka said.
He said there was a wholesaler who had pulled out Fiji banners and posters on tourism on Friday, with Mr Gavoka saying they were still selling Fiji products under certain conditions.
“The New Zealanders have always been the second money earner in the tourism industry.” “More than 100,000 New Zealand tourists visit our shores every year,” he said.
“The New Zealanders are also the first tourists to return to our shores after every political crisis and they have been our very loyal neighbour.”
Mr Gavoka said they were still monitoring the situation and since it was winter in New Zealand, there would be many tourists coming into the country.
He said it was a commercial decision by one of the wholesale company to pull out banners and posters at their shops.
Last Friday, Tourism Association Group chairman Damend Gounder said the decision by the interim administration to expel NZ high commissioner Michael Green would trigger anti Fiji- NZ sentiments, adding that “What had happened was an unfortunate incident and I hope it is resolved amicably”. “It will trigger anti Fiji-NZ sentiments and affect the tourism industry.”
He said, “So far we are in the middle of a market strategy between the tourism stakeholders in the country and our counterparts in NZ”.
He said there were a few activities in place to look at tapping on the New Zealand market in reviving the tourism industry.
Mr Gounder hoped that local business that had business partnership with those in NZ were not affected by this decision made by the interim Government, adding, I hope the travel advisory which has just been upgraded is not affected because this would largely affect the travel of tourists to the country”.
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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