Login Here
Internet Portals
| Driving a realistic Tourism for Papua New Guinea |
| Written by Peter Vincent |
| Wednesday, 29 September 2010 00:00 |
|
The tourism industry in Papua New Guinea has never faced many greater challenges in the past 30 years than what it currently has over the past 10 years. The challenges are not merely about increasing the number of tourists visiting Papua New Guinea but about setting in place realistic policy mechanisms for tourism development, developing genuine tourism products for international markets and driving a feasible marketing program that achieves results in terms of increased tourism numbers for the greater benefit of all Papua New Guineans participating in our tourism industry. That is why media headlines such as “The Day Tourism Died in PNG” and “Lack of Tourism Development” in PNG do not necessarily help promote tourism development in PNG – instead they deter the growth of tourism in Papua New Guinea. The fact that tourism in general is a fragile and market sensitive industry in terms of the immediate damage that can be caused by such negative press is probably either not well understood or is deliberately ignored by the media in general. However, that is not to say the Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority as a State entity disputes or will shy away from the issues as raised by Sir Peter Barter in both the Post-Courier and The National newspapers. The issues highlighted are all genuine. In fact, these are the very issues that have been continuously raised time and time again by the PNG TPA through established government channels of communication, at industry and stakeholder forums and through the media. Issues such as law and order, immigrations, customs and visa, negative media publicity both here and abroad, negative image perception of Papua New Guinea overseas, high cost of travel, lack of readily available and affordable quality accommodation and dealing with rouge tourism operators. We have stated and we continue to stress that these are issues that cut across a broad section of our society and government and it is something the PNG TPA cannot solve on its own. There has to be a whole of government approach to properly addressing these issues and PNG TPA continues to create forums and open up dialogue with relevant authorities and stakeholders on these issues where there are no easy answers. Unless the national government is totally committed to developing tourism as a key economic sector for the future as clearly stipulated by Sir Peter Barter.
Of course, tourism numbers are the yardstick for measuring the tourism performance of any country and we do not know where others are getting their statistics. So there has been generally positive growth in bona fide tourists despite decreases in 2003 mainly due to SARS and in 2009 the global financial crises which affected global tourism by four percent and regional tourism by three percent. In its official publications, PNG TPA does however reports the overall international visitor arrivals including business and others as that is the standard reporting style sanctioned by major regional and international tourism organisations such as United Nations World Tourism Organisation. The UNWTO also defines a tourist as a visitor whose visit is for at least one night and whose main purpose of visit may be classified as leisure and holiday or business and professional. PNG TPA in all its reports also clearly reports the actual arrivals and percentages in each category of holiday and business so there should be no confusion. PNG TPA does acknowledge that there may be abuse of visa application and use by persons visiting for purposes other than for tourism but that is common in many other countries and that is something we are confident our counterparts in Immigrations and Customs will address in due course. However, it would be quite outrageous to suggest that the visa abusers make up 50 percent of the tourists numbers to PNG as this is highly improbable. The fact remains that Papua New Guinea has so much potential for tourism and there is so much room for improvement in future. As seen from numbers of bona fide tourist arrivals, Papua New Guinea is no longer just a one or two tour operator tourism destination, we have diversified and grown to a level where there are now more reputable and world class tourism operators right across Papua New Guinea that are working in collaboration with one another and with PNG TPA to increase tourism numbers to our country each year. Their tours and packages are also marketed and promoted through PNG TPA offices in Australia, Japan, USA and Europe. While we have increased in genuine tourism operators and our ability to lure more bona fide tourists, PNG still cannot be compared with other destinations in the region such as Fiji. Fiji has developed its industry over many years to a level now where it is self sustainable compared to PNG where most tourism operators still rely on PNG TPA to develop and promote their businesses. For instance, PNG TPA currently funds two-thirds of travel costs for genuine local tour operators to travel trade and consumer shows around the world. Further, given that the main stay of the Fiji economy is wholly based around tourism, its government places a lot of emphasis and resources in this one sector and government policy is geared towards its continuous development while the same cannot be said about Papua New Guinea as we have other major resource sectors which unfortunately for tourism take government priority. In Papua New Guinea we rely on collaboration and partnership with industry to drive our tourism sector. Since 2000, there is a lot more confidence in the industry to work in partnership with PNG TPA mainly due to the fact that we have had consistency over a long period of time in the senior management and Board of PNG TPA without any politically motivated interference to really knuckle down and achieve something for the sector. There is more understanding, appreciation and collaboration with industry associations such as diving, surfing and the tour operators association and other line agencies and key stakeholders such as Air Niugini. Air Niugini in particular, continues to fly the tourism flag for Papua New Guinea with the acquisition of new aircraft fleet and introduction of a second weekly flight to Japan, extra flights to Australia and reintroduction of flights to Manila which are all positives developments for PNG tourism.
But we are the first to also acknowledge that a lot more hard work still needs to done to bring Papua New Guinea to that competitive level as our regional neighbors and PNG TPA has taken those necessary steps by developing the 10-year Tourism Master Plan 2007-2017 (a first for PNG tourism) to provide that much needed road map for the development of tourism in Papua New Guinea. A lot has been done through the implementation of the TMP since – thanks mainly to the support of the national government through increased budgetary support over the past three years – for us to develop and implement among others a Cruise Ship Strategy; a Standards and Accreditation System for our Accommodation Sector; development of our model provinces of Milne Bay, Eastern Highlands, Madang, East New Britain and Kavieng; and the development of iconic tourism products such as the Tari Basin Tourism Development with its new website launched recently, cycling and kayaking in New Ireland, kayaking in Tufi as well as developing the Mt Wilhelm and Black Cat Tracks not to rival but provide alternatives for Kokoda Track. All of these projects community based tourism initiatives geared towards a long term sustainable tourism industry. We can only assure the Government and people of PNG that tourism is not dead in Papua New Guinea. PNG TPA believes we are driving a realistic and growing tourism development agenda for Papua New Guinea. By Peter Vincent
What do you think about this article? Add you comments and views below:
|