Need To Know
Marketing The South Pacific
Meet New SPTO Boss Tony Everitt
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| Tony Everitt, New boss of SPTO. [PHOTO: Samantha Magick] |
The Suva-based SPTO has 13 national government members—14 if you count Nauru, which is about to join—and over 200 private sector members. Its role is to market the region as a whole, to provide research into visitor markets, and to coordinate training and technical support.
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Everitt hit the ground running, attending a regional tourism ministers meeting, the Pacific Islands Forum conference and the “PROFIT in the Pacific tourism investment” symposium at the end of last year.
His strong marketing background is evident. Meeting regional journalists recently, Everitt was quick to stress the positive image of the South Pacific as a destination and income generator.
“Tourism is delivering up to 75 percent of foreign exchange earnings in some (SPTO member) countries, up to 50 percent of GDP and up to 12 percent of formal employment,” he says. “Tourism is in good heart. In terms of total revenue it has been growing very strongly, in fact it has increased by one-third since 2001, from just under US$1 billion to just over US$1.5 billion in 2004.
“And for every US$1 million spent here, 66 percent is retained locally in the region—salaries, supplies and services. That’s very high retention rate.”
Everitt does acknowledge some challenges, not the least being the reliance on the Australian and New Zealand markets.
“We need to have a balanced portfolio of markets. Because what tends to happen is markets are cyclical. In Australia and New Zealand over the last five years, the economies have been good, the dollars have been strong, but it doesn’t carry on forever, and already some economists are saying that maybe 2007 and 2008 are going to very quiet years.”
Everitt fielded a series of other questions from Pacific Magazine and other journalists in a recent briefing.
Question: How well are smaller markets equipped to cope with increased tourism numbers?
Tony Everitt: There won’t be a huge influx. A boom and bust syndrome never benefits anybody, and tourism needs to be developed step by step. So what happens if you can get 10 percent more visitors, and you’re a smaller destination, maybe that’s going to encourage someone to build another motel and you get a few more rooms. Then maybe an airline puts on an extra flight. It is a step by step process. It takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight.
Airline service and access has been a major constraint for some Pacific Island countries. What can be done to address that?
TE: At the end of the day airlines have to be profitable, they’re businesses…the thing that motivates airlines is the opportunity to make profit. It has to be in the long term otherwise it’s not sustainable. What helps generate profits? It’s demand, visitors. So we work closely with all our member airlines. We involve them in our activities. We share with them our plans and that gives them confidence that over time, there is really serious commitment from the governments and the businesses in the Pacific to building demand. That’s what it all comes down to. But you can’t create demand overnight.
How will you deal with the periods of instability some member countries go through?
TE: It’s a question of balance. We don’t comment specifically on individual security issues. I don’t think you’ll ever see that from South Pacific Tourism. Our role is to distribute information to the world about tourism in the Pacific that is factual, that is correct, and is true. So that’s what we focus on.
Do you find security a major threat to tourism in our region?
TE: Globally travelers are interested in security and safety. That is an element in people’s decision making processes. And the reputation of the South Pacific is actually very good in the international marketplace. The reputation of our brand is very good.
Some of our countries have Approved Destination Status, and there is an expectation Chinese countries will begin arriving next year.
TE: Our opportunity with China is to focus on the independent traveler. What that means is people who are not traveling in large groups, but maybe are like the other visitors, honeymoon couples and so on. Our advice is to concentrate on this independent market rather than the sort of mass large group kind of market that is also available from China. It’s a huge market, in the last 12 months over 20 million people traveled from China. And a lot of those people were traveling in very large groups. That’s not the kind of visitor we would like to see in the Pacific. There’s a very small percentage of that who are the kind of visitors you see from other markets. They’ve got a lot of travel experience already and now they are ready to see something more. So that’s the way to start in the China market, small and sustainable.
