The World Bank’s upcom­ing US$20 mil­lion Tour­ism Sec­tor Devel­op­ment Pro­ject in Pap­ua New Guinea (PNG) will include “tar­geted sup­port for com­munity-led micro-enter­prises to cre­ate jobs, espe­cially for women”.

The pro­ject will work with PNG gov­ern­ment and industry play­ers on an “integ­rated approach to tour­ism” in the provinces of East New Bri­tain and Mil­ne Bay and will be informed by the res­ults of an ongo­ing sur­vey of inter­na­tion­al vis­it­ors to the coun­try.

The World Bank pro­ject will incor­por­ate an Envir­on­ment­al and Social Man­age­ment Frame­work (PDF 2 MB), which in turn includes an “Indi­gen­ous Peoples Plan­ning Frame­work” and “Reset­tle­ment Policy Frame­work”; tools to “guide the TPA on the envir­on­ment­al and social screen­ing and sub­sequent envir­on­ment­al and social assess­ment of tech­nic­al assist­ance and sub­pro­jects dur­ing pro­ject imple­ment­a­tion”.

The full news release about the inter­na­tion­al vis­it­or sur­vey:

IFC-led survey reveals value of Papua New Guinea’s tourism sector

The Inter­na­tion­al Fin­ance Cor­por­a­tion (IFC) sur­vey, in part­ner­ship with the Tour­ism Pro­mo­tion Author­ity of Pap­ua New Guinea, reveals tour­ists spent $105 mil­lion in the Pacific island nation in the first half of 2017 with each vis­it­or spend­ing $2,558 per trip on an aver­age.

The Inter­na­tion­al Vis­it­or Sur­vey (IVS), under­taken by the New Zea­l­and Tour­ism Research Insti­tute (NZTRI) of Auck­land Uni­ver­sity, meas­ures travel pat­terns, beha­vi­ors, and spend­ing by PNG’s inter­na­tion­al vis­it­ors arriv­ing by air. The sur­vey excludes those arriv­ing for short-term employ­ment. Trav­el­ers are required to com­plete an online sur­vey on return­ing home from PNG.

“The early res­ults from the IVS provide detailed inform­a­tion about arrivals that can be used to inform PNG’s tour­ism devel­op­ment,” said Tom Jac­obs, IFC Region­al Man­ager, Pacific. “It is excel­lent to be able to say with con­fid­ence that vis­it­ors have con­trib­uted $105 mil­lion to the PNG eco­nomy in just the first half of the year.”

Res­ults show the import­ance of Aus­trali­an and Asi­an vis­it­ors for PNG’s tour­ism sec­tor. Vis­it­ors from these coun­tries con­sti­tute 75 per­cent of the total tour­ist arrivals. Although vis­it­ors hol­i­day­ing com­prise only 24 per­cent of arrivals, they are by far the highest spend­ers with an aver­age spend­ing of $3,188 per per­son per trip. Busi­ness vis­it­ors and those vis­it­ing friends and rel­at­ives, too, com­prise import­ant mar­kets mak­ing up 41 per­cent and 20 per­cent of total air arrivals respect­ively.

Most vis­it­ors stay in the Pap­ua Region of the coun­try, which is home to the Nation­al Cap­it­al Dis­trict. Those who ven­ture into the coun­try, usu­ally vis­it the Island region (22%) and Momase region (21%). Tour­ists hol­i­day­ing say that they find the people, activ­it­ies and attrac­tions, and scenery or land­scape as the most appeal­ing aspects of PNG. Nearly all vis­it­ors would like to fur­ther explore the coun­try, with 93 per­cent say­ing that they would like to be back in PNG.

“The res­ults show there is still plenty of work to be done to attract more high-spend­ing hol­i­day vis­it­ors from Aus­tralia, Asia and long haul mar­kets in North Amer­ica and Europe,” said Alice Kuaningi, Dir­ect­or of Mar­ket­ing, Tour­ism Pro­mo­tion Author­ity. “The inter­na­tion­al vis­it­or sur­vey will con­tin­ue to provide us with crit­ic­al inform­a­tion about vis­it­or beha­vi­or and trends as we con­tin­ue its imple­ment­a­tion through the rest of this year and the next.”

The ongo­ing sur­vey is a joint effort between the PNG Tour­ism Pro­mo­tion Author­ity and the New Zea­l­and Tour­ism Research Insti­tute at Auck­land Uni­ver­sity, with sup­port from IFC. Fund­ing is also provided by the Pacific Part­ner­ship.

The res­ults of the sur­vey will also con­trib­ute to the World Bank’s upcom­ing Tour­ism Sec­tor Devel­op­ment Pro­ject, which will work with the gov­ern­ment and industry play­ers on imple­ment­ing an integ­rated approach to tour­ism in Pap­ua New Guinea. The US$20 mil­lion (PGK64 mil­lion) cred­it will also provide tar­geted sup­port for com­munity-led micro-enter­prises to cre­ate jobs, espe­cially for women.

What is IFC

IFC, a mem­ber of the World Bank Group, is the “largest glob­al devel­op­ment insti­tu­tion focused on the private sec­tor in emer­ging mar­kets”.

“In FY17, we delivered a record $19.3 bil­lion in long-term fin­an­cing for devel­op­ing coun­tries, lever­aging the power of the private sec­tor to help end poverty and boost shared prosper­ity.

“IFC’s work in the Pacific is guided by the Pacific Part­ner­ship. Aus­tralia, New Zea­l­and and IFC are work­ing togeth­er through the Pacific Part­ner­ship to stim­u­late private sec­tor invest­ment and reduce poverty in the Pacific.”

Fea­tured image: Firedan­cer of the Bain­ing people on the Gazelle Pen­in­sula, East New Bri­tain, Pap­ua New Guinea. By Taro Taylor from Sydney, Aus­tralia (CC BY 2.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

Download

PNGTPA Envir­on­ment­al and Social Man­age­ment Frame­work PNG Tour­ism Sec­tor Devel­op­ment Pro­ject (PDF 2 MB)