There are still many oppor­tun­it­ies for Pacific Island states to take advant­age of tour­ism for devel­op­ment, accord­ing to Rat­nakar Adhi­kari and Joe Natuman writ­ing for the Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion.

The seafront of Port Vila, Vanuatu, bustles with activ­ity. Traders – most of them women – call out to tour­ists wan­der­ing past, implor­ing them to take a look at a kal­eido­scop­ic island dress or intric­ately woven bas­ket.

These ‘mar­ket mamas,’ as they are col­lo­qui­ally referred to, are the back­bone of a vital part of Vanuatu’s eco­nomy – its tour­ism industry. Tour­ism employs 55 per­cent of Vanuatu’s total labour force, rep­res­ents 65 per­cent of Vanuatu’s GDP and is also help­ing com­munit­ies build resi­li­ence to cli­mate change.

Take Port Vila’s seafront, for example, which was des­troyed by Trop­ic­al Cyc­lone Pam in March 2015. With the help of the New Zea­l­and gov­ern­ment and the Enhanced Integ­rated Frame­work, Vanuatu redeveloped the seafront into an attract­ive area for loc­als and vis­it­ors alike – build­ing a stage for cul­tur­al per­form­ances, equip­ping the mar­ket mamas with power and inter­net, and rein­for­cing the seafront wall to enhance pro­tec­tion against erosion.

It is expec­ted that the seafront redevel­op­ment will con­trib­ute to a 36 per­cent increase in tour­ism arrivals this year, which means more loc­al jobs not just for tour­ism oper­at­ors but also for farm­ers, fur­niture makers, beau­ti­cians, artists and oth­er pro­fes­sions dir­ectly or indir­ectly impacted by the tour­ism industry.

Vanuatu is not the only Pacific Island state for which tour­ism is vital for eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment. The World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil rates Ocean­ia second to only the Carib­bean in terms of tourism’s con­tri­bu­tion to employ­ment, GDP, domest­ic spend­ing and vis­it­or exports.

The Solomon Islands is anoth­er coun­try that sees tour­ism as a power­ful tool to decrease poverty in rur­al com­munit­ies, and has intro­duced a num­ber of suc­cess­ful meas­ures in the past few years to enable an increase in par­ti­cip­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly of women and youth, in the sec­tor.

Policy ini­ti­at­ives such as the Nation­al Tour­ism Devel­op­ment Strategy 2015 – 2019 (PDF; hos­ted off­s­ite) have cre­ated a favour­able envir­on­ment for tour­ism to flour­ish, lay­ing out a roadmap for a pros­per­ous tour­ism industry in the medi­um- to long-term.

This has led to access­ible edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tun­it­ies in hos­pit­al­ity, travel and tour­ism which women have par­tic­u­larly have taken advant­age of, mak­ing up over 70 per­cent of the 2016 enrol­ments at the Solomon Islands Nation­al University’s School of Tour­ism and Hos­pit­al­ity.

How­ever, there are still many oppor­tun­it­ies for the Pacific Islands states to take advant­age of tour­ism for devel­op­ment, for which urgent pri­or­ity actions are needed.

First, coun­tries need suf­fi­cient trans­port capa­cit­ies, includ­ing improv­ing air and sea­port ser­vices with increased fre­quency and reduced costs of travel from key tour­ist des­tin­a­tions.

Second, the region needs to devel­op and strengthen edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions to improve tour­ism-related skills in the work­force. This will allow more loc­al job­seekers to bene­fit from the sec­tor.

Third, for some coun­tries high fees for tour­ist visa and oth­er ser­vices, as well as rigid pro­ced­ures on arrival may deter reg­u­lar tour­ists. Eas­ing visa require­ments and sim­pli­fy­ing cus­toms and immig­ra­tion pro­ced­ures is cru­cial.

Finally, increased link­ages between arriv­ing tour­ists and loc­al busi­nesses need to be made to ensure inclus­ive growth from tour­ism. This could be through link­ing loc­al farm­ers to hotels and res­taur­ants through to gov­ern­ment-to-gov­ern­ment part­ner­ships, as exem­pli­fied by the Vanuatu seafront devel­op­ment.

This con­ver­sa­tion is com­ing at an import­ant time. The United Nations has des­ig­nated 2017 is the Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment, which aims to sup­port a change in policies, busi­ness prac­tices and con­sumer beha­viour towards a more sus­tain­able tour­ism sec­tor that can con­trib­ute to all of the 17 UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals. Lead­ers across the Pacific have com­mit­ted to the SDGs, with the Prime Min­is­ter of the Solomon Islands declar­ing the Goals as their “ulti­mate com­mit­ment.”

Rat­nakar Adhi­kari is Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or for the Enhanced Integ­rated Frame­work and Hon. Joe Natuman is Deputy Prime Min­is­ter of Ni-Vanuatu and Min­is­ter for Tour­ism, Trade, Com­merce and Busi­ness.

Source: The Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion, the char­it­able arm of Thom­son Reu­ters.



Fea­tured image: Port Vila, Vanuatu, from the War Memori­al, 2006. By Phil­lip Cap­per (CC BY 2.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

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