Low visitor numbers putting PNG tourism well below market leaders

ONLY 25 per cent of visitors to Papua New Guinea last year were holiday travellers, which is well below Fiji and Vanuatu where tourists make up more than 75 per cent of arrivals.
This huge disparity is revealed in the 2017 International Visitor Survey released yesterday.
It means that Papua New Guinea has a “holiday market gap” of 28 per cent as the global level 53 per cent of all international trips in 2017 were for the purpose of holiday travel.
This was one of several findings of the survey by the Tourism Promotion Authority and the World Bank which was presented yesterday at a stakeholder workshop.
In 2017, Papua New Guinea received 86,000 air visitors and has been growing as a tourist destination at the rate of 5 per cent a year from 2011 to 2016.
The biggest number of visitors were business travellers at 54 per cent while 11 per cent were individuals visiting family and friends.
The survey found that holiday arrivals or genuine tourists were the highest spenders, averaging US$2559 (K8315) per trip.
International Finance Corporation tourism consultant Jessica McComb said there was a need to emphasise the reliance on the Australian market which made up 52 per cent of holiday travellers to Papua New Guinea.
She said the sector had to diversify products to have an equitable spread of benefits from tourism and to maximise potential for tourism in Papua New Guinea.
This was evident in 25 per cent of all holiday travelers visiting the Kokoda Trail, which was too large a market share for just a single product.