Fiji’s maintains the ‘roaring 40’s’ as AU visitor arrivals for June establish yet another new benchmark

Fiji's maintains the 'roaring 40's' as AU visitor arrivals for June establish new benchmark

• Fiji stays  bang on track for record breaking year
• 'Multi-faceted Fiji' marketing strategy continuing to pay dividends in AU marketplace

Fiji has once again smashed all previous Australian visitor figures for a month of June with numbers released by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics this week showing the destination recorded a total of 27,651 arrivals for the period – a massive 48.3 per cent increase over the corresponding period in 2009.

The record breaking figure eclipses the 18,673 total achieved for June 2009 and in the process takes the destination's total Australian visitor arrival tally for the 2010 six month period to 127,284.

This represents a 43.9 per cent increase over the 88,420 achieved for the same period in 2009.

Tourism Fiji regional director Australia Paresh Pant said the performance means Australian arrivals now represent close on 47 per cent of Fiji's  total international visitor intake for the year to date.

"Our Australian visitor arrivals are continuing to play a major role in keeping Fiji bang on track for its best ever year on record," he said.

"This result is again indicative of the impact our overall marketing strategy for the destination in this marketplace is having in combination with the huge efforts we are seeing from our local airline, wholesale and retail partners which continue to keep Fiji very much in the spotlight."

The Australian result has again helped take Fiji's international visitor arrival figures for the year into new ground with a total of 272,250 recorded for the January-June period.

This represents a 21.5 per cent increase over the 224,334 recorded over the same six month period in 2009 with substantial gains recorded in Fiji's second and third largest source markets – New Zealand and the US – which increased by 16. 4 per cent and 9.1 per cent, respectively.

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.