Tourists arriving into the country.

The tourism sector received 895, 137 visitors during the 2018–2019 financial year.

While presenting the Ministry of Tourism’s Annual Report to the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, Permanent Secretary Shaheen Ali stated that this is a four percent increase compared to the previous financial year.

Ali says the ministry created synergies through the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s report from the ‘farm to tourist tables’ initiative.

“We also promoted premier sports tourism destinations, and also successfully modernized and rolled out the international visitor survey. We also trained 88 frontline staff under the Fijian host program, and we encourage community-based tourism as well through MSME Fiji, empowering those MSMEs that were in the tourism sector.”

Ali says the Ministry during the 2018–2019 fiscal year also implemented the National Export Strategy, where the government supports firms that are on the verge of exporting or are exporting but finding certain difficulties.

Five companies were given this support not exceeding $100,000.