{"id":7230,"date":"2020-05-07T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/?p=7230"},"modified":"2023-03-10T13:59:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T03:59:30","slug":"covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 delivers a body blow to Pacific tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Pacific\u2019s $4.2 billion tourism industry has been brought\nto its knees by COVID-19, with no certain\nsigns of a proper recovery for at least two years. Tourism receipts from air\ntravel alone <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate.southpacificislands.travel\/spto-releases-2019-2024-pacific-tourism-forecast\/\">totalled\nUS$4.2 billion<\/a> in 2019, an increase from US$4 billion in 2018. The economic fallout\nfrom the decline is expected to be severe in a region prone to natural\ndisasters, and high levels of poverty and\nunemployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">National airlines in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands\nand Vanuatu have grounded all commercial\nservices, with special arrangements being made for evacuation and freight flights only. The Pacific Asia Travel Association is bracing\nfor a major drop in international visitor\narrivals to the Asia-Pacific region <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pata.org\/pata-asia-pacific-visitor-numbers-likely-to-reduce-by-32-in-2020-but-return-in-2021\/\">by as much\nas 32% in 2020<\/a>. The Asian Development Bank\nexpects tourism-based economies in the Pacific to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adb.org\/news\/tourism-driven-economies-pacific-feel-brunt-covid-19-pandemic-adb\">contract by\n0.3% in 2020<\/a>. Hotels and resorts\nhave closed in bigger tourism markets such as Cook Islands, Fiji, Palau, Tahiti and Vanuatu with their governments moving quickly to close\nborders in attempts to prevent COVID-19\nentering their countries. Emerging tourism markets such as Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tonga are also closed to mass arrivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Across much of the region, tourism is a key driver of\neconomic growth and a major source of employment\nand government revenue. Because of their remote locations, significant barriers to trade and a high reliance on aid, tourism is seen\nas a saving grace by many countries. The region welcomed\nmore than <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate.southpacificislands.travel\/spto-releases-2019-2024-pacific-tourism-forecast\/\">2.1 million\ninternational visitor arrivals<\/a> in 2019, an increase of 6.6% from the previous year. Countries like Fiji and Vanuatu,\nwhich earned roughly $44.2million and $34\nmillion in economic benefits respectively from the industry in 2019, stand to\nlose out. This includes the promising cruise industry,\nwhich has also ground to a halt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some observers believe it could take <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/apr\/16\/its-catastrophic-fijis-colossal-tourism-sector-devastated-by-coronavirus\">at least\ntwo years<\/a> for the industry to get back on its feet again. Others remain uncertain given that recovery will\nlargely depend on people\u2019s appetite\nand confidence to travel once more. According to the Asian Development Bank, Cook Islands, Fiji, Palau, Samoa and Vanuatu will\nexperience <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adb.org\/news\/tourism-driven-economies-pacific-feel-brunt-covid-19-pandemic-adb\">negative or\nno economic growth<\/a> this year\nas a result of a decline in tourism numbers. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) predicts that thousands of tourism workers\nin the region are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ilo.org\/wcmsp5\/groups\/public\/---asia\/---ro-bangkok\/documents\/briefingnote\/wcms_742664.pdf\">facing poverty<\/a> as a result of losses from low visitor arrivals. In\nFiji, nearly 300 hotels and resorts have shut\ndown or been converted into quarantine sites, with over 40,000 tourism workers\neither laid off or sent on leave without\npay. The chief executive officer of the Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association, Fantasha Lockington, has described the\nsituation as \u2018extremely devastating.\u2019\nTourism contributes about $FJ2 billion (AU$1.3 billion) to Fiji\u2019s national\nGross Domestic Product, nearly 40%, and directly and\nindirectly employs roughly 150,000 people across many\nindustries. Some international names that operate in Fiji include the Sheraton Resort, Marriott International, Hilton Fiji Resort and the\nJean-Michel Cousteau Resort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Visitor arrivals have also sharply declined in Vanuatu, where\ntourism makes up nearly 40% of GDP and more\nthan 50% of total exports. Vanuatu is\none of the few countries in the world yet to record a single case of the coronavirus. Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Samoa also\nremain COVID-19 free. But border\nclosures and travel restrictions around the world and within Vanuatu has seen\nvisitor arrivals plummet to zero, impacting\nthousands of tourism-dependent livelihoods in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tropical Cyclone Harold, a category five storm that battered\nVanuatu on April 6, was a further\nblow for tourism there. The ADB provided a $1 million grant in support of\nrelief efforts to the Vanuatu government,\nwhich had just recently announced a $32m economic stimulus budget in response to\nCOVID-19. In Samoa, more than 4000\ntourism workers have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tvnz.co.nz\/one-news\/world\/time-sacrifice-in-samoa-tourism-suffers-under-covid-19-lockdown-rules\">reportedly\nlost their jobs<\/a> after the country closed its borders to foreign nationals on March 20. The ILO believes the\nPacific\u2019s tourism sector will need\nfunding support from international agencies\nsuch as the World Bank and partner countries like Australia\nand New Zealand to cope with the longer term impacts of COVID-19. Pacific governments have offered some support to businesses through\neconomic stimulus packages and income\nsupport funding. But there are <a href=\"https:\/\/devpolicy.org\/the-pacifics-economic-response-to-covid-19-will-it-be-sustainable-20200423-1\/\">concerns of\nsustainability<\/a> should the pandemic continue.\nPacific countries do not have the fiscal capacity to maintain support over a prolonged period, particularly with falling tax revenue from\ntourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is some effort to establish a pathway with Australia and New Zealand, the Pacific\u2019s largest tourism source markets, to allow the region access to the so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/political\/415549\/experts-debate-including-pacific-in-trans-tasman-bubble\">Trans-Tasman trade and travel \u2018bubble\u2019<\/a>. The bulk of the region\u2019s visitors come from Australia, New Zealand and North America. There are some positive some signs that virus containment measures in Australia and New Zealand are working and international travel can resume soon. Passenger travel is also increasing in China, the original epicenter of the virus and an emerging source market. While the short and medium-term outlook may look bleak, there is some hope that in the long-term the region will come out stronger from this unprecedented crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"Author label wp-block-paragraph\">AUTHOR<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Fiji Sun deputy managing editor business and senior news journalist <strong>Sheldon Chanel<\/strong> is a freelance journalist based in Suva. Sheldon writes for the Guardian Pacific and is the consulting editor for the University of the South Pacific\u2019s journalism student newspaper, Wansolwara.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pacific\u2019s $4.2 billion tourism industry has been brought to its knees by COVID-19, with no certain signs of a proper recovery for at least two years. Tourism receipts from air travel alone totalled US$4.2 billion in 2019, an increase from US$4 billion in 2018. The economic fallout from the decline is expected to be severe in a region prone to natural disasters, and high levels of poverty and unemployment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1105,1756,1021,248,1055],"tags":[1052,1093,934,1101,969,1050,1147,1023,1145,961],"class_list":["post-7230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus-in-the-pacific","category-livelihoods-culture","category-pacific-outlook","category-png-and-the-pacific","category-economies-and-development","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid19","tag-griffith-asia-institute","tag-pacific","tag-pacific-islands","tag-pacific-outlook","tag-sheldon-chanel","tag-solomon-islands","tag-tourism","tag-vanuatu"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"Kelsey O'Brien","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>COVID-19 delivers a body blow to Pacific tourism | Griffith Asia Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Pacific\u2019s $4.2 billion tourism industry has been brought to its knees by COVID-19, with no certain signs of a proper recovery for at least two years. Tourism receipts from air travel alone totalled US$4.2 billion in 2019, an increase from US$4 billion in 2018. The economic fallout from the decline is expected to be severe in a region prone to natural disasters, and high levels of poverty and unemployment.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"COVID-19 delivers a body blow to Pacific tourism | Griffith Asia Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Pacific\u2019s $4.2 billion tourism industry has been brought to its knees by COVID-19, with no certain signs of a proper recovery for at least two years. 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The economic fallout from the decline is expected to be severe in a region prone to natural disasters, and high levels of poverty and unemployment.","og_url":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/","og_site_name":"Griffith Asia Insights","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/griffithasiainstitute\/","article_published_time":"2020-05-07T06:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-03-10T03:59:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":900,"height":500,"url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/0605pacific-covid-impact-1-900x500-1.jpg?fit=900%2C500&ssl=1","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Griffith Asia Institute","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@GAIGriffith","twitter_site":"@GAIGriffith","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Griffith Asia Institute","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/"},"author":{"name":"Griffith Asia Institute","@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/#\/schema\/person\/8121b8aa336749474cbaca380c03029a"},"headline":"COVID-19 delivers a body blow to Pacific tourism","datePublished":"2020-05-07T06:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2023-03-10T03:59:30+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/"},"wordCount":872,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/0605pacific-covid-impact-1-900x500-1.jpg","keywords":["Coronavirus","Covid19","Griffith Asia Institute","Pacific","Pacific Islands","Pacific outlook","Sheldon Chanel","Solomon Islands","Tourism","Vanuatu"],"articleSection":["Coronavirus in the Pacific","Pillar 2: Livelihoods and culture","Region | Papua New Guinea and the Pacific","Region-PNG and the Pacific","Topic-Economies and development"],"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/","url":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/","name":"COVID-19 delivers a body blow to Pacific tourism | Griffith Asia Insights","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/covid-19-delivers-a-body-blow-to-pacific-tourism\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/05\/0605pacific-covid-impact-1-900x500-1.jpg","datePublished":"2020-05-07T06:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2023-03-10T03:59:30+00:00","description":"The Pacific\u2019s $4.2 billion tourism industry has been brought to its knees by COVID-19, with no certain signs of a proper recovery for at least two years. 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This is Heine\u2019s second term in the office, having previously served as President for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Commentary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/category\/publication\/commentary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Griffith University Pacific Outlook banner - map of the Pacific region over a beach background.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/05\/pacific-outlook-banner-900x500-copy-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/05\/pacific-outlook-banner-900x500-copy-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/05\/pacific-outlook-banner-900x500-copy-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/05\/pacific-outlook-banner-900x500-copy-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7460,"url":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/information-sharing-among-pacific-central-banks-some-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":7230,"position":5},"title":"Information sharing among Pacific central banks","author":"Griffith Asia Institute","date":"12 June 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"RAYNOLD MICAH MOVENI\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 In a previous article on the Pacific Forum, I raised the prospect of information sharing among the people of the South Pacific\u2014particularly those in rural areas. 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