Solomon Islands is facing a long road back to pre-COVID tourism levels after the recent unrest in the country, but the Tourism Solomons team remains optimistic that the island nation will see a return of visitors in 2022.
The Tourism Solomons team is doing its best to get into the Christmas spirit as Honiara, now free of curfew, slowly returns to calm following the recent unrest. Tourism Solomons head of sales and marketing, Fiona Teama, advised that while many buildings in the eastern parts of the city – Ranadi and Chinatown in particular – had been badly damaged, fortunately, Honiara’s hotel and tourism infrastructure remains intact.
Tourism Solomons team get in the Christmas spirit.
Ms Teama said that the unrest has obviously had a major impact on the destination’s tourism aspirations as it slowly heads towards a post-pandemic lockdown environment.
“The Solomon Islands now faces a long road back to its pre-COVID successes when we saw international visitation grow by 10 per year on year from 2013 and we had a strong voice on the South Pacific tourism stage.
“While we haven’t anticipated reopening our borders until sometime in 2022, and that all depends on when we reach a 90 per cent vaccination rate, sadly, this occurrence will likely push that date back even further.
“There is no sugar-coating the actual situation, we have to be realistic about the damage done to Honiara and the damage done by the unrest and we know we have a massive amount of work to do.
“Our priorities are two-fold – we need to regain confidence in our country as a safe destination for international travellers, and we also need to get ready in time for our hosting of the Pacific Games in 2023.
Ms Teama reminds travellers, while the city is a key part of the country’s overall infrastructure, for many visitors it serves as a springboard to the Solomon Islands main tourism corridors in the outer islands, which have not experienced any trouble whatsoever.
“With Munda now in place as our second international airport, the world still has ready access to these outer regions and all the amazing activities we offer – from diving, surfing and fishing to our WW11 history and of course our amazing living culture – which are spread right across our archipelago.”
Prior to the unrest, the destination has for the last 18 months been hard at work preparing the tourism sector for the time when international visitors can return to the Solomons Islands, through the ‘Iumi Tugeda’ (You and me together) domestic travel initiative. The program is intended to drive business and revenue into hard-pressed tourism operators pockets while at the same time, readying these industry partners for the day when borders reopened.
This has included ensuring all accommodation suppliers have brought their offerings up to the required the Minimum Standard program instigated by the Ministry of Culture & Tourism in 2019.
The Solomon Islands now has an ambitious target to meet – 100,000 visitors arrivals per annum by 2035.
“While we now face an even longer road ahead, we know and we are confident we will achieve what we have set out to achieve and come back bigger and better than ever before,” Ms Teama said.
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