Findings from Fiji’s 2019 Annual International Visitor Survey (IVS) reveal total tourism earnings of $3.03 billion.
Tourists spent the most on accommodation, which amounted to $992 million or 33 per cent of total earnings. International airfares totaled $901 million or 30 per cent of tourism revenue while tourists spent $606 million on restaurants and bars, particularly through meals included in pre-paid packages.
The 2019 IVS Report was undertaken jointly with the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, with the support of the governments of Australia and New Zealand and aims to assist the tourism industry make informed decisions based on available data.
While travel and tourism has come to a grinding halt in 2020, owing to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the IVS will provide invaluable context to help shape the country’s tourism recovery.
“2019 was an exceptional year for the Fijian tourism industry. It’s especially noteworthy because we’ve reached our $2.2 billion target, ahead of 2021 as initially anticipated,” Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport permanent secretary, Shaheen Ali, said.
“While we acknowledge global travel and tourism has taken a significant hit from the pandemic, and 2020 will be a difficult year, we hope the IVS Report can be taken as a benchmark for Government and industry to strive towards,” Mr Ali added.
The report contains information such as reasons for visit, visitor demography, average nights spent in Fiji, booking and travel trends, expenditure patterns as well as top activities and regions visited.
The IVS Report is an online self-administered system, using an enhanced methodology and increased sample size from the previous IVS. This has reduced the relative margin of error for spending and gives a better representation of visitors to Fiji.
Going forward, the Ministry will continue work on its current IVS to provide more robust and timely data to stakeholders.