Pacific Magazine > Daily News

Tahiti Tourism Slide Continues

Monday: March 31, 2008

(Tahitipresse)

The volume of overseas visitors arriving in Tahiti continued to slide in February with a 6.9 percent drop that was only slightly mitigated by a 30 percent increase in the number of pre- and post-cruise hotel stays by cruise ship passengers reports Tahitipresse.

The 14,765 February visitors were 1,094 fewer than the 15,859 visitors a year ago, according to the monthly report from the French Polynesia Statistical Institute (ISPF). February's slide followed a bigger one in January, which produced 13,102 visitors, a drop of 2,252 from the 15,354 visitors a year ago.

That gave Tahiti a two-month total of 27,867 visitors, or 3,346 less (-10.7%) than the 31,213 visitors a year ago. Those results led to the Council of Hotel Industry Professionals claiming Thursday that Tahiti's tourism industry is in a "crisis".

Meanwhile, the Council of Hotel Industry Professionals (CPH) issued a news media communiqué on March 27 claiming that Tahiti's tourism industry is in a "crisis". For the CPH, French "Polynesian tourism is dying. The bad results of 2007 are continuing and worsening at this beginning of the year 2008.

"The accumulated occupancy rate for the first two months of the year 2008 underwent a drop of 21.64% (not including cruise ship passengers), compared with 2007.

"For example, on Bora Bora, (French) Polynesia's showcase in our tourist markets, the hotels are experiencing serious financial difficulties…," the CPH communiqué states. And it added, "Not counting those (hotels) in the remote archipelagoes that are bankrupt.

"This is resolutely an obvious indicator of the (French) Polynesian tourism crisis," the CPH concluded.

http://www.tahitipresse.pf/index.cfm?snav=see&presse=23566&lang=2