Fiji’s New Zealand visitor figures for June jump by 9.5 per cent

Submitted by TemoL on Fri, 03/09/2010 - 8:20am

Underlining Fiji’s ongoing popularity with the New Zealand travelling public, Kiwi visitor arrivals to the destination for the month of June 2010 showed an increase of more than nine per cent according to figures released this week by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.

The 10,518 figure recorded for the period represents a 9.5 per cent increase over the corresponding period in 2009 when 9606 New Zealanders visited the destination.

The result takes the destination’s tally for the six month period January to June to 37,306, a very healthy 16.5 per cent increase over the 32,010 figure recorded for the January-June period in 2009.

Tourism Fiji regional director New Zealand Sala Toganivalu said the positive performance was again indicative of the impact the national tourist office’s overall marketing strategy was having in New Zealand.

This she said could be largely attributed to the ongoing ripples emanating from the highly successful and very high profile ‘Lucky Me – Fiji Me’ national TV and cinema advertising campaign.

“The June result means our New Zealand visitor arrivals now represent close on 14 per cent of all Fiji’s international visitor intake and continue to play a major role in keeping Fiji bang on track for its best ever year on record,” Ms Toganivalu said.

International visitor arrivals for the six month period reached 272,250, a 21.5 per cent increase over the 224,334 tally recorded for the same six month period last year.

The Fiji Bureau of Statistics figures show Australia again provided the bulk of international arrivals with numbers increasing by a very solid 48 per cent while US visitor arrivals increased by 9.1 per cent.

The national tourist office’s ongoing efforts in several key emerging markets are also continuing to pay off with visitor arrivals from China increasing by 31.3 per cent and Indian visitor arrivals climbing by 28.6 per cent.

Traffic from the UK/Europe also increased by 3.0 per cent, the slight but positive increase attributed to the region’s slow but steady recovery from the GFC in the period leading up to the key northern hemisphere holiday period.