Pacific Profiles
New Directions for Pacific Tourism Agency
Director ’Akolo Aims to Diversify Funding and Membership Base for SPTO
Lisiate 'Akolo, of Tonga, has taken over from Fiji's Levani Tuinabua as chief executive of the South Pacific Tourism Organization (SPTO). The change comes at a critical time in SPTO's history. It is moving away from dependence on more than 15 years of near total reliance on funds from the European Union. It needs other sources of revenue, and it needs to convince the Pacific Islands tourist industry that SPTO is worth their financial and membership support because it brings them real benefits.
With a background of development bank management and sorting out the troubles of some of Tonga's government agencies, 'Akolo was first to point out that: "One thing that can be considered as a weakness is the fact that I don't have a tourism background. But the more I talk to people the more confident I am that it is an asset not having a preconceived concept of the industry." SPTO is being restructured. Private sector members have joined its board, formerly restricted to representatives of the 13 national tourism offices that form SPTO. He's convinced that there's much scope for pushing up SPTO's private membership, now about 150 corporate supporters. "If the private sector members know that at the end of the day they are getting something out of their fees, they will come in. We need to improve our reputation and image, meaning that we need to create a better product to sell."
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European Union budget funding for SPTO was due to expire last May but was extended until May 2001. Under new policies, the EU won't fund routine administration costs or marketing and promotion. "Maybe we took it for granted that (EU) funding will continue to be extended," 'Akolo says. "We have not done enough to diversify and identify other sources."
Talking about his home islands of Vava'u, a cluster of little-visited islands but a Mecca for cruising yachts, he says Vava’u has a problem in winning tourism investment. He advances a solution SPTO could apply in helping its small member countries. "There are a lot of people with properties who want to enter joint ventures, but are not in a position to promote their properties. I have this idea for a data base of all tourist properties available in each country so that if we go to Europe or America we can tell investors exactly what is available in each country; not only land but the tenure system, law and other things investors expect us to know and tell them about. That is the kind of thing I would like SPTO to work on."
He’d also like to see islands piggybacking on tourism market-leader Fiji. "Tonga is only 55 minutes away from Fiji. Why can't we arrange a package whereby a tourist coming to Fiji will spend two days in Tonga at the end of their stay in Fiji? Perhaps, we can arrange a triangular package, two days in Samoa, two days in Tonga before they go home. If with such an arrangement we could get say 10 percent of the visitors to Fiji, that would be more than our total annual arrivals."
What does SPTO's new chief executive guess about how Pacific Islands tourism will move in say the next 10 years? "It has been said that South East Asia will become one of the strongest markets in the future as people there become more affluent. If that happens then the possibility of the South Pacific region becoming stronger is also there.
"We should try to align the tourism we have with some of the aims of donors. For example, environmental issues, clean air and water — eco-tourism is a big industry. We are very lucky in this part of the world to have clean water. We still have this opportunity of enjoying a clean environment.
That is something that will draw tourists to our part of the world.
"The biggest plus SPTO has is that we are working as a region, trying to establish a regional identity. The biggest minus is that we, the SPTO, need to justify our existence in providing services to our members and the region."
