SUVA – Australian visitors are helping to drive the recovery of Fiji’s tourism industry.
Fiji has set a new benchmark for Australian visitor arrivals with 22,577 visiting in August following a record-breaking performance in July.
The August figure brings Fiji’s Australian visitor tally for the calendar year to 135,726, still 8.5 per cent down on the 148,332 tally recorded for the eight month period in 2008.
International visitor arrivals have grown steadily in the last five months to reach 334,524, now just 13.7 per cent short of the 387,464 figure achieved for the same period in the record breaking 2008.
Tourism Fiji chairman Patrick Wong is optimistic it will achieve its target of 540,000 tourists for this year.
Wong said overall arrivals in August stood at 53,994 – a drop of 6.3 per cent compared to August last year. He said the average hotel occupancy for August was 72 per cent – two per cent down from 2008.
