Record July figures take Fiji AU 2010 visitor arrivals past 155,000 mark

Close on 1000 Australians visited Fiji every day throughout July helping to chalk up another new monthly record for the destination.

A total of 29,436 Australians (an average of 949 per day) visited across the month, a 19 per cent increase on the 24,729 figure achieved for the same period in 2009 according to figures released this week by the Fiji department of information.

The strong July performance takes Fiji’s total Australian for the seven month period January to July to 156,720 in itself a 38 per cent increase over the 113,149 total achieved in 2009.

The Australian result has again helped push Fiji’s international visitor arrival figures for the year into new ground with a 339,056 total recorded for the January-July period.

This represents a growth of over 19.5 per cent the same period last year.

Australian business now represents 53 per cent of total traffic.

The positive Australian result was reflected across all of Fiji’s key markets.

This included a return to positive growth for Canadian visitor arrivals – up five per cent to 1782 – for the first time this year.

New Zealand visitor arrivals climbed by six per cent to 13,949 while US figures rose by five per cent to reach 6560.

The national tourist office’s ongoing efforts in several key emerging markets continued to pay off – albeit off small base numbers – with visitor arrivals from China achieving a massive 149 per cent increase.

Taiwan business grew by 45 per cent while visitor arrivals from India climbed by 15 per cent.

Traffic from the UK/Europe remained steady and while increases for the month only rose by 0.7 per cent, the destination is bracing itself for a very strong result in August, the traditional holiday and travel month for much of the northern hemisphere.

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