HOT on the heels of the Solomon Islands recording its best annual international visitation intake, the Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau (SIVB) has kicked off 2018 with strong intent conducting a five-city ‘tourism mission’ in the key Australian and New Zealand markets.
Spread across three weeks of non-stop activity, the national tourist office accompanied by Solomon Airlines flew the flag at major consumer travel events in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne attended, collectively, by close on 90,000 dedicated travel intending consumers.
In New Zealand CEO Josefa ‘Jo’ Tuamoto and his team met with many of the country’s senior travel media and travel industry management in both Auckland and Wellington.
Mr Tuamoto said Australian numbers continued to dominate the Solomon Islands’ international visitation statistics – close on 40 per cent of all visitation – but he was delighted with an ever-growing New Zealand performance which saw Kiwi arrivals increase by 12 per cent in 2017 – three (3) per cent above original projections.
“We are keenly aware that we need to grow our visitation in all markets, especially USA, Asia and Europe where we have made major inroads in recent years and this year will be no different as we continue our push into those markets,” Tuamoto said.
“But we must never lose sight of the fact we have two very economically sound sources of potential visitation on our very doorstep.
“And this is exactly why we go to the efforts we do to maintain our profile in both countries where make no bones about it, we face stiff competition in an environment literally flooded with other destinations’ promotional messaging.
“It is critical we do all possible to ensure we maintain and grow our share from both these countries if we are to achieve our 2018 visitation target now set at nine (9) per cent growth for 2018.
“Hence the effort we are going to in order to keep the Solomon Islands’ profile as high as possible on behalf of our entire industry.”
–SIVB PRESS
