The seven people hospitalised in Fiji with suspected severe alcohol poisoning are reported to be in a stable condition, says Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill.

Seven people, including four Australian tourists and one American, and two other foreigners who live in Fiji, had been drinking cocktails at the 5-star Warwick Resort in the Coral Coast before they fell ill.

All have now been transferred to the larger Lautoka Hospital from Sigatoka Hospital because of the severity of their condition.

Hill told RNZ Pacific they were all now in a stable condition and there had been improvement in some symptoms.

“We don’t want to speculate on exactly the cause; we don’t know that yet,” he said.

“But what we do know is that it was limited to only seven tourists at one resort and only at one bar in that resort as well.

“Talking to the management they’re quite perplexed as to how it’s happened, and certainly there are no accusations around that something’s been put into their drink or been diluted or using a foreign substance.”

A local ‘had seizures’
A resort guest, who did not want to be named, told RNZ Pacific that his friend, a local, was having seizures on Saturday afternoon and was still too ill to get up.

The guest said he was certain the drinks had been tampered with.

“We have not received any proper communication from the Warwick team and just asked one of my friends to sign an indemnity form.”

He said that he and the group that he was with had all had one drink each at the adult pool bar.

“Everyone that I saw at the Sigatoka Hospital all drank the piña colada.

“The hospital and doctors were the saving grace . . . they were really overwhelmed, but tried their best to get everyone stable and moved out to Lautoka ICU overnight.”

Fiji’s Health Secretary Dr Jemesa Tudravu told local media two out of the seven affected individuals had been placed on life support over the weekend. However, they had since recovered and remained in critical condition.

Tudravu said all those affected were tourists, and no locals involved.

Affected locals ignored
But the resort guest who spoke to RNZ Pacific claims that Tudravu has completely ignored the fact that locals were also affected.

A Fiji police spokesperson said on Monday that a 26-year-old local woman been discharged from Sigatoka Hospital.

“Others have been transferred to Lautoka Aspen Hospital and we will wait for medical authorities to clear the victims first before we can interview them,” he said.

“But police investigation is already underway.”

Hill said the tourism industry was very conscious of the recent tainted alcohol incident in Laos, where several people died, but said it’s “a long way from that”.

“The resort has certainly given us assurance that there’s no indication around substituting substances in beverages and so on. So it’s a little bit of a mystery that a nice resort would experience something like this.”

When asked if tourists needed to be careful ordering cocktails in Fiji, Hill said people needed to be careful anywhere around the world, including at home.

‘Unfortunate experience’
“The risk is very, very small, but at the same time, we don’t want to diminish for these seven people.

“It’s obviously been a really unfortunate experience and we certainly are trying to work out what’s caused that and our investigation is continuing.”

Brent said he had never heard of anything like this happening in Fiji before.

He hoped it would not affect Fiji’s reputation as a tourist destination.

“I do understand, of course, based on recent events in Southeast Asia that people want assurance that they can be safe, and certainly from our perspective it’s a really isolated case.”

A spokesperson for Warwick Fiji told RNZ Pacific that they had “nothing to disclose”.

RNZ Pacific was told the general manager of the high-end resort would not front for an interview because the suspected poisoning was still under investigation.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A year after re-opening its borders, Fiji has recorded an injection of F$805 million into its economy from international visitor arrivals between April and August.

After shutting its borders for almost two years at the height of the covid-19 pandemic, Fiji has welcomed 520,000 tourists to its shores in the past 12 months.

Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill said the steady increase in international visitors is promising for an economy where tourism is its largest asset, previously accounting for 40 percent of the country’s GDP.

“It’s been wonderful to welcome back international visitors for the last 12 months and to see a steady increase in numbers as the world gets used to travelling again.

“The recovery trajectory for visitor arrivals has exceeded our expectations, and the impact can be seen in our economy with tourists buzzing in resorts, towns, and villages as people experience the true Fiji,” Hill said.

Success in structure
Last year, Fiji was one of few Pacific nations to open its doors to tourists with minimal restrictions. What may have seemed like a bold decision at the height of the pandemic has today paid off for a nation that heavily relies on tourism as its highest income earner.

The successful rebound is attributed to the covid-safe measures implemented by the industry prioritising vaccination and the Care Fiji Commitment programme, Tourism Fiji’s New Zealand regional director Sonya Lawson said.

Lawson said while tourists were eager to travel again, security and well-being remained a priority for travellers.

“The programme implemented by Tourism Fiji was a standard of best practice protocols and standards, and certified tourism operators as having rigorous measures in place to manage covid-19 was reassuring,” she said.

“This really provided confidence to travellers, tourism provider providers and locals alike, and that was a key factor in the initial stages, and from there, the confidence has just continued.”

New Zealanders flocking to Fiji
Tourism Fiji said bookings from New Zealand in October this year exceeded pre-pandemic levels at 103 percent of the same period in 2019.

July welcomed over 25,000 New Zealanders which is 91 percent of 2019 levels; in August, that hit 87 percent, and September achieved 95 percent before exceeding Kiwi visitor numbers by October.

Hill said similar to New Zealanders, the resilience of the Fijian people, hospitality, and a commitment to welcoming back visitors is why Fiji has been successful in standing out as a destination.

“We look forward to a bigger and better 2023 focusing on sustainable, authentic tourism.”

New Zealand is Fiji’s second largest international visitor market, now accounting for 26 percent of total visitors – an increase of 3 percent from the 2019 figures.

Lawson added that New Zealand’s visitor arrivals into Fiji had also increased as it previously used to sit at around 23 percent.

There was a 4 percent increase in visitors from Auckland, and 2 percent rises from both Wellington and Christchurch in July this year compared to 2019. This coincided with the phased re-opening of New Zealand borders when Kiwis could travel freely without MIQ.

“Many hotels and resorts have recorded growth in their number of Kiwi visitors — New Zealand is now the second largest market for Six Senses Fiji (resort), having been fourth in previous years,” she added.

New trends for tourists
Leisure and spending also took a turn from pre-pandemic activities. Tourism Fiji recorded tourists travelling around the country with more extended stays.

“For New Zealanders, Denarau, Coral Coast, and Nadi are generally a fan favourite, but we’ve noticed high demands for other regions like the Yasawa Islands and the northern parts of Fiji where there are unique experiences. New Zealanders who have been to Fiji more than once are now discovering other regions to discover,” Lawson said.

“We also previously noticed an average stay of around five nights, but in the last eight months this has increased to around nine nights. We’ve also seen that the spending has increased by an average of 12 percent per day per visitor.

“So we’re putting a lot of this down to the fact that people are embracing travel, have missed the ability to travel, and are taking longer to enjoy a holiday in Fiji.”

Lawson explained that Fiji noticed an increase in ‘multi-generational travel’ where extended families travel together and reconnect in Fiji.

Tourism Fiji has set an ambitious goal of 3 million extra visitor arrivals by 2024, and they believe they are trekking to achieve this target.

“At this stage, Fiji has exceeded all of our expectations for this year, and we’re delighted with how Fiji has resumed and bounced back this year,” said Lawson.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Although Fiji was unaffected by the first wave of covid-19, its tourism sector — the lifeblood of the economy — has been devastated by border closure across the world due to the pandemic in the past two years.

Thus, when the Fijian Tourism Expo (FTE) returned after a break of two years, Fiji Tourism’s CEO Brent Hill was in an upbeat mood, especially because they have been able to attract more than 500 participants to the Expo in these competitive times for the travel industry.

But, having experienced the vulnerabilities, sustainability was very much in focus during presentations at the event here.

In 2022, Tourism Fiji comes with a vision to “inspire the world to come and experience Fiji — where happiness finds you” and our purpose is to “ensure that Fiji is promoted and marketed as a tourist destination for the purpose of maximising sustainable and long terms benefits to Fiji”, said Hill, in presenting a brief overview of their past achievements and their two-year strategic plan to the FTE.

The 8th FTE was held on May 11-13 at the luxury Sheraton Beach Golf and Spa Resort near Nadi, the gateway to Fiji where its international airport and many tourist resort islands are located.

The three-day event attracted more than 88 exhibiting companies, 90 buyers and 10 media delegates eager to learn the strategic plan Tourism Fiji has set for the small island nation.

The semi-government agency was supported by Fiji’s Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport and was declared opened by Minister Faiyaz Koya, who highlighted the negative impact of covid on the tourism industry.

‘Guided by robust policies’
“During this time, we were guided by robust policies that led to our border re-opening,” he said in his opening address.

“Our out-of-work tourism workers were among those supported by half a billion dollars (US$230 million) in direct and indirect assistance paid by the Fijian government. We took the last two years as an opportunity to re-invest.

“From upgrading our tourism facilities and renowned hospitality, to piloting new products.”

Hill’s presentation at the FTE highlighted that during the pre-pandemic period, the tourism sector represented 38 percent of the Fijian economy bringing in 36.5 percent employment making up over 118,000 jobs in a population of just over 896,000.

In 2019, the overseas visitor economy in Fiji was worth F$3 billion (US$1.37 billion) and had attracted 960,000 international arrivals, mainly from Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United States.

Fast forward two years later into the post-pandemic period, the plan of tourism Fiji is to increase the visitor economy to F$3.37 billion.

Also, a high end goal of attracting 1 million international visitors by 2024 has been set. Hill highlighted that the two year strategic plan, 2022 to 2024, was strategised after consultations were done by meeting with tourism industry and also seeking people’s feedback on what Tourism Fiji’s priorities should be.

Six key priorities
From these consultations, they have pulled out six key priorities for the two year plan.

Sustainability is a key ingredient of the plan that includes shaping perceptions of Fiji, promoting the value of tourism to Fiji and enabling an efficient, high performing and innovative team to take the industry forward.

“For Tourism Fiji, it is very important as an organisation that we set our values. As a team, we really wanted to identify the core of who we are as a true Fijian and I’m very proud of the values that we actually came up with as a team and we want to make a difference,” said Hill.

Citing data from the global benchmarking agency Smith Travel Research (STR), Hill said that in 30 of Fiji’s key hotels that accounts for about 8500 rooms, the occupancy was running at 20 percent levels.

“That is a stunning rebound recovery and not to be sneezed at,” he points out, adding, “I know that there is dozens of tourism organisations around the world that would be begging to have their occupancy at those kinds of levels.”

Many of the exhibition booths at the FTE represented luxury boutique type resorts in small “paradise” islands that surround Fiji’s main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu.

Many of these islands are so small that it may include just the resort which is usually privately owned (leased from traditional land owners).

Resort occupies whole island
One such resort is Beachcomber Island, just 17 km and 40 minutes by fast ferry from Port Denarau, the site of the Expo.

The resort occupies the whole of the privately owned 8 ha island, where staff works on a 21 day shift followed by 7 days leave to go back to “civilisation”. The resort which is very popular with foreign tourists was closed from 20 March 2020 until April 1 this year.

The resort manager, Nemia Merani, that she had to keep a skeleton staff of 5 during this time to help maintain its facilities, even though they had no income coming.

Pre-pandemic they used to employ 50-60 staff but now they only have 15-20 staff on the island.

“People from overseas are still hesitant to come,” she said. “Things that help us are day visitors not only weekends but weekdays too.

“We are selling to locals everyday. During the weekend we have a surge in numbers and after this we go right down again.”

Ironically, this resort was too expensive for local tourists pre-pandemic but the prices have been reduced for locals now.

‘Overseas visitors slowly picking up’
“Overseas visitors — especially from Australia — are slowly picking up and if that continues we will survive,” Merani said optimistically.

From presentations made at the Expo, the pandemic has also raised awareness among tourism operators here about the sustainability of the industry and the need to tap into local resources much more.

Even the five-star Sheraton hotel where the Expo was held made a special presentation on how they are developing a supply chain of local farmers feeding into their menus.

Since the borders were opened on December 1 last year, according to government figures, 119,000 tourists have arrived in Fiji, with 46,000 coming in April alone.

“I believe that we can work together collectively for providing the value of tourism to Fiji,” argues Hill pointing out the networking that took place here.

“Part of that is that we need to continue to tell the story of tourism and tell the story of what it is that we’re all about.”

Sheryl Lal and Akansha Narayan are final year journalism students at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. This story ror In-Depth News was initially published in USP’s student journalism newspaper Wansolwara. Both IDN and Wansolwara collaborate with Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz