Tourism
Bali bombings pushing some business our way
But for how long?
Terrorism culminating in the Bali nightclub bombings in which more than 50 Australians died is pushing a few extra tourists the way of the Pacific Islands.
Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia are likely to benefit the most. However, with the heavy Christmas and New Year traffic season looming, destinations with room constraints, like Samoa, are not well positioned to be able to absorb more business.
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The bombings in Bali, a popular attraction for young Australians, deeply shocked Australia.
The Australian government had previously issued travel advisories warning its citizens to be wary about or avoid travel to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and China.
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After the bombings, some major Australian travel businesses predicted that the risk of encountering terrorism-inspired trouble in Asia would swing Australians away from such regions to the comparatively peaceful Pacific Islands region.
There were also predictions, however, that because of the strong attraction and sympathy for Bali it would not be that long before Australians resumed travel to the island.
Jo Tuamotu, marketing director for Fiji Visitors Bureau, told Islands Business that the horrors of Bali had definitely caused a swing by some Australians to Fiji.
Craig McCarthy, Air Pacific’s commercial manager, said that in the first week after the bombings, the Fiji carrier had picked up 400 to 500 extra bookings to Fiji, apparently influenced by the terrorist attack. But by the second week of November bookings were “more or less back to normal. There is an influence but nothing dramatic,” he said.
Semisi Taumoepeau, director of the Tonga Visitors Bureau, said it was too early to say whether his country was picking up extra Australian business although he expected some.
“We had forecast a six percent growth of visitor arrivals in 2002.
“But it’s running at 11 percent and we are not quite sure why,” he said.
Linda Kalpoi, of Vanuatu’s National Tourism Office, said some Port Vila hotels had reported “a bit” of extra business. But generally visitor arrivals for 2002 were running at below the 2001 figure.
Chris Wong, of the Cook Islands Tourism Corporation, said the impact of the Bali attacks by mid-November had no discernible effect on Cook Islands tourism.
“It is very difficult for us to detect because all our traffic comes via Auckland (New Zealand), so we don’t have the direct access to Australia Fiji has.”
Wong said the start of the tourism year had been “terrible” with a drop in arrivals from three of its main markets—North America, Europe and Australia.
“The only market holding up is New Zealand, but we started to pick up in October with our first increase.”
Wong said it was hoped the initiation of a twice-weekly Aloha Airlines service from December would compensate for the loss of business caused by the collapse of Canada 3000, an airline that had operated to Rarotonga from Vancouver seasonally.
Tuamoto told Islands Business that the Bali bombings had two impacts. “One is the fact that most Australians now realise that there is no safe place on Earth, particularly to where they are going. In terms of overall travel outwards, people will say ‘Oh, why bother.’
“The second thing is that some Australians will now rebook either to North Queensland or the Pacific Islands. That is where Fiji features very strongly.
“The indications I’ve heard is that some properties are now getting very strong bookings for November, which is normally quiet. The problem I’m facing is pinpointing the actual amount diverted. This is difficult because with our January-September arrivals we are up by 33 percent from Australia.”
Tuamoto said the Fiji Visitors Bureau and Air Pacific had been marketing strongly in Australia prior to the bombings.
“The other critical thing working well out of Australia is the Early Bird’s special (airfares) which has really been driving a lot of business to Fiji from other destinations.
“The other strong factor is the pick-up of the MICE market. We took a conscious decision this year to focus on big groups in view of the capacity made available by Air Pacific.
“We are working with Air Pacific on that and also targeting areas we didn’t do in the past like the Newcastle area, Tasmania and Adelaide.”
Tuamoto said some Australian tour operators told him that some of their incentive group tours had been cancelled because corporate offices had ended their travel incentives.
“But the same operators said they have picked up other business which was a definite redirection from Bali.
“It is way up on new bookings compared with cancellations.”
Air Pacific’s plan to increase its seat capacity by about 60 percent from next March would alleviate “a lot of problems for us.
“The main seat capacity problem for Fiji now is out of the New Zealand market.
“Americans and Europeans go to Australia first, then New Zealand and then Fiji and then back to the United States. So they are taking up all the northbound seats.
“That also affects our United States traffic because Americans can come just to Fiji and return if northbound seats are full.”
An extra Air New Zealand flight in January would “cushion us a little bit.”
Tuamotu said from the United States the only subject raised was: Is Fiji safe? “That’s the fist question they ask.
“We tell them that close to 50,000 Americans came last year so it’s pretty safe. They also like the fact that there are not too many Americans congregating together here.”
