Kirisitiana Uluwai 
[File Photo]
More than 90,000 visitors landed in Fiji last month.
The Fiji Bureau of Statistics stated that visitor arrivals for September 2023 totaled 90,439.
Chief Executive Kemueli Naiqama says the number was a record for September and represents an increase of 24.5 percent compared to a year earlier.
Naiqama says this is an increase of 3.5 percent compared to August 2023, which recorded a total of 87,368.
He adds that in 2022 and 2021, visitor arrivals for September stood at 72,657 and 460, respectively.
Visitor arrivals levels in September 2023 are 11.2 percent higher than the pre-COVID era in September 2019.
Of the 90,439 visitors, 89,203 came by air, while 1,236 came by sea.
The 1,052 sea arrivals were mostly on fishing vessels, with 184 arrivals by yacht.
In September 2023, visitors arriving for holiday purposes accounted for 80.9 percent of total arrivals; 7.6 percent came to visit their friends or relatives; 1.7 percent came for business purposes; and 9.8 percent visited Fiji for other reasons.
The majority of visitors were in the age range of 25–64 years (64.2 percent), which accounts for the vast majority of the working-age population.
Children aged 14 and below accounted for 17.2 percent of the September visitor arrivals; 9.6 percent comprised those in the predominantly retirement age group of 65 and over, with the remaining 9.0 percent being youths aged 15–24.
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