Fiji just 11,000 Australians shy of best ever annual figure

Tourism Fiji is getting ready to celebrate a record year for the destination with November 2010 statistics taking the destination’s Australian visitor arrival tally to just 11,100 shy of a best-ever 300,000 annual result.

Figures released this week by Fiji’s Bureau of Statics show a total of 23,615 Australians visited Fiji across November, the figure taking the destination’s 11-month tally to 288,884.

This in itself represents a massive 30 per cent over the 222,998 achieved for the same period in 2009.

As importantly, and again underlining the strength of the Australian market to Fiji, the 288,884 figure also represents 50 per cent of Fiji’s total international visitor arrival tally – 576,987 – for the 11-month period.

Tourism Fiji’s regional director Australia, Paresh Pant said he was “in no doubt whatsoever” that Fiji would cross the 300,000 mark with both local and Fiji industry partners indicating a very strong December from the Australian market.

The Australian result once again had major impact for Fiji’s overall arrival figures with the destination now needing just 23,000 international visitors across December in order to pass the 600,000 mark for the very first time.

“In reality that should be a very easy task given that Fiji has on average hosted some 50,000 international visitors every December since 2007,” Mr Pant said.

The 576,987 international tally for the 11-month period represents a 17.2 per cent increase over the 492,173 figure achieved for the same period in 2009.

Following the Australian lead, the majority of Fiji’s key source markets also showed positive growth with figures from China and India – plus 86 per cent and 25.5 per cent respectively – leading the way.

Growth was also recorded from the USA (plus 7.2 per cent) and the UK/Europe (plus 7 per cent) while New Zealand numbers stayed positive achieving a one per cent increase.