Tourism

Battle between destinations will be rife

December 2, 2021 12:59 pm

[Source: Tripsavvy]

There will be a battle between different tourism destinations for the next couple of years says Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

With countries opening their borders for travel following almost two years of restrictions, Sayed-Khaiyum says everybody is trying to get a share of the market.

He highlights that tourism operators will need to become creative.

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In Fiji he adds, hotels do not offer meals in their room rates, which is a downfall when compared to high and medium tourist destinations.

“If you sitting at your home in Sydney, you looking at rates. You look at people offering your maybe free food, you looking at the PCR test – well hang on I’ll save a bit more money in this country, so maybe I’ll go there. So the tourism sector needs to understand that.”

Sayed-Khaiyum says the government has allocated $40m in the budget to subsidize the tourism sector.

Any hotel that partners with Fiji Airways to provide airline packages together with room rates at discounted rates will get a subsidy.

The Minister highlights travelers have become price sensitive and industry stakeholders must look at the long term.

“When people are price sensitive they look at other things. Whether the toilets in the hotel are clean. When they are at the hotel, the waitresses serve them well, are the rooms clean, are the services up to speed in those types of areas. So everybody becomes sensitive about that and we need to kind of be sensitive about that and kind of react to that.”

Sayed-Khaiyum is urging all tourism operators to live and maintain their standards in terms of services.