Seeto says quick tourism revival is good for Fiji’s economy

Dixon Seeto, President of the Fiji Islands Hotel and Tourism Association says that if Fiji is able to quickly revive the ailing tourism industry, this will assist the government greatly in its objective to kick start the economy as soon as possible.

Seeto maintains that tourism, Fiji’s biggest foreign exchange earner, plays such a large part in the economy “that once this tourism is fixed, it basically fixes the economy 60-70%”.

And he believes that unlike tourism, the sugar and other (industries) would take a much longer time to recover.

Dixon said this as government yesterday approved $3.8 million for the Tourism Action Group , which has been reactivated in the wake of the December 5 military coup to help arrest the downward spiral of the industry, to fund the marketing recovery plan of the tourism industry.

This is on top of $15m marketing budget approved for the Fiji Visitors Bureau for 2007.

Seeto said the latest funding is for phase 2 of the marketing recovery plan by TAG covering Australia, New Zealand, Fiji’s main tourism markets, as well as the rest of the world now.

According to Seeto, this latest funding has precedent as in the past, the previous interim government, after the 2000 coup, gave the industry $4m for exactly the same purpose.

“In money terms we are asking for slightly less this time around, because in 2000 they gave us $4m, and now this is 7 years later, and we are getting $3.8m.”

He says the tourism industry was grateful to the interim Tourism Minister Bernadette Ganilau for leading the charge on this and in convincing the Prime Minister and her colleagues that these additional funds was necessary “to sustain our visitor arrivals, foreign exchange earnings and to normalise employment as soon as possible”.

Right now TAG is the spearhead for all promotional activities involving accommodation, airline, wholesalers, and playing a very important co-ordinating role to revive the industry as soon as possible.

Dixon said tourism particularly has potential to recover very quickly provided a proper marketing strategy, together with the necessary resources including funding are put in place.

TAG is also canvassing contributions from the private sector with sizeable contributions already from many of the larger organisations that have a relationship with the tourism industry and in the long run are stakeholders in the industry also.

These include banks including ANZ which gave $75,000 and Westpac that gave $50,000 and it is believed insurance broker AON is also planning on giving a contribution.

Currently, a lot of bank loans are to tourism projects which means they have a vested interest in making sure the industry is viable, “So they are very much stakeholders in the industry as well.”

Seeto said over $200,000 has been collected already but the finance subcommittee of TAG is continuing its work to solicit more contributions from the private sector and that work is ongoing.

Phase 1 had a funding of $1.2m which has been used up for marketing primarily aimed at Australia and the New Zealand market.

Special Fiji Report by The Mole