Banking on tourism but faced with a dilemma
Published on: Monday, November 30, 2015
By: James Sarda
Text Size:
There is no direct flight to the capital, Nadi, from the main metropolises to begin with. The shortest route requires you to first go to Australia or New Zealand where it takes almost four hours to wing there by Virgin Airlines or Fiji Airways. If you choose to go via HongKong it will take you eight hours, including five hours on transit.
Hence, people don’t usually go to Fiji unless they have specific reasons or it is one of the few remaining places they have not added to their list. Which in a way has ensured that it would remain one of the world’s best kept tourism secrets.
But with the FijiFirst Government of last 2006 coup leader Commodore Frank Voreqe Bainimarama as Prime Minister and Indian-Muslim Attorney General-cum-Acting PM Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum at the helm, things are changing for the better.
“The Australians who come to Fiji are the rich ones. Bali gets all the poor ones,” quipped tourist limousine driver Jack Bert, in his assessment of the traditional visitors.
“Bali may win in quantity but we are happy to get the ones with more time and more money to spend in Fiji although lately there have been quite a number of backpackers.”
Long dependent on sugar cane as its main revenue, Fiji is determined to see tourism take centre stage but is faced with a dilemma. For all the efforts at boosting tourism revenue, the Government found to its dismay that only 40 cents from every tourist dollar earned actually remained in the country.
Malaysian billionaires Robert Kuok and Tan Sri Vincent Tan both of who have resorts not very far from each other on the main island of Viti Levu and other foreign investors may well be among the reasons the other 60 cents leave Fiji.
“Very few of the resorts and hotels are Fiji-owned. So whatever money they make don’t filter down to the Fiji economy but go to sustain their chains of resorts in other parts of the world,” said Bert.
Being a nation comprising over 300 islands, another minus factor is that most of the food and other essentials relevant to tourism have to be imported.
This has raised a chicken-and-egg situation where government allocations for tourism are concerned with some questioning whether it is right for the Government to inject funds to promote tourism if the benefits are not going to trickle down but take flight.
The latest allocation by the Banimarama Government to the sector was F$23million (RM60m). The alternative would be for the proprietors of the foreign owned resorts to market their assets in Fiji on their own.
On the positive side, the industry creates employment and the quality of the hospitality staff is high becausethey are educated in three languages, I-Taukei (mother tongue) and Hindi in primary schools while only English from secondary school onwards.
When told that in Malaysia the tourism sector has suffered somewhat due to an education policy that required the medium of instruction in schools to be in Malay from start to end when people landing jobs in the sector required communicating with foreigners who best understand English, Bert said:
“We Fijians are no less nationalistic. That is why we had this coup culture (four coups since 1987 which was a response to the Indian dominance in the nation’s politics and economy). But we did not insist that our I-taukei should be the medium of instruction in schools. Fijians can understand and communicate in I-taukei and Hindi and vice versa. That is good enough.
“We felt Fiji’s unity will be better served through speaking English even though the Queen’s role had ended by becoming a republic under Rabuka’s coup in 1987.”
Bert said that due to the free education policy of the new government that believes in the K-economy (knowledge), Fijians in the tourism sector in the coming years will be not just be fluent in English but better educated with a minimum of high school level.
“We are expecting 93pc literacy under the free education policy,” he said. Bainimarama other election promises were free medical care and better roads. The better roads mean tourists can be driven anywhere now. The new government saw this as necessary for tourism.
“After four years of heading a coup government, he (Bainimarama) knew what needed to be done. Which is why the indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians set aside our differences and gave FijiFirst almost 60per cent of the mandate last year,” said Bert, one of 30 mostly ethnic Fijians employed to chauffeur tourists by limousine by his Indian employer.
But for the time being until tourism picks up significantly and pressure is put on employers, Bert sees the sector offering below-par wages which average about RM600 for a waiter monthly (compared to a minimum wage of RM900 in Malaysia). Besides the low wages, hospitality sector workers are now mostly hired on part-time basis.
Another downside is that the tourism potential has resulted in many resorts and hotels being built on reclaimed seafront land. This has affected the environment. Extensive flooding is being blamed on cutting down of mangroves and clogging of waterways during reclamation works. There are even complaints of large amounts of river stones being used to build resorts to the extent that there are hardly any in sufficient numbers anymore to hold back the rush of water after heavy rain.
The Government came up with a Green Growth Plan as a response that required all developers to be conscious of the environment with conservation and sustainable growth considered regardless of whether the tourism facility is located in the highlands, coast or reefs.
Despite the setbacks, Fiji prefers to see the distance and connectivity setbacks as twin assets in marketing itself as a place that affords bragging rights when just about everyone has been to everywhere and done everything in this age of budget air travel.
Thanks to its Indian connection, it is wooing Bollywood films to be shot there with rebates for film production being thrown in. The Government hopes the rebates would lead to more Bollywood films promoting Fiji and that this would have a multiplier effect. The country is also hoping for a big chunk of the nouveau rich honeymooning Indians.
A sign of the changing tourism fortune was Fiji Airway’s acquisition early this year of its fifth new B737-800 aimed at tackling the problem of more flights and new destinations.
Acting PM Aiyaz, a seventh generation Indian-Muslim, said the aircraft would be the answer to increased frequencies and new destinations.
Fiji Airways Chairman Nalin Patel spoke to the local media about how the new aircraft comes at an important time for Fiji.
He said it would be used to bring more New Zealanders and Australians and position the airline as the leader in Pacific aviation through code-sharing with neighbours Tonga and Vanuatu.
The Fiji Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism is also working with stakeholders to develop a tourism masterplan that would enable the sector to churn in F$2b through events like the Fiji International PGA (golf), international rugby for which the Fiji Sevens are one of the world beaters, surfing and a well-developed MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibition) market.
Even the Chinese have recognised the tourism potential and have been coming in droves. Restaurants serving quality Chinese cuisine that would put many in Sabah to shame have opened up in Nadi and Suva and there is talk of a Chinese city coming up in Lomo-Lomo following Chinese President Xi’s visit last year to inaugurate a government hospital built with Chinese funds.
Buses that traditionally have no windows and have plastic sheets pulled down in the event of rain are now being phased out. One stage bus firm acquired six Hino models in June this year.
ADVERTISEMENT
