Survey guides foreign investments, says Agus

Data from a survey on international visitors to PNG for last year provides a valuable information to guide foreign investment in the tourism sector, says Tourism Promotion Authority chief executive Jerry Agus.
He said this yesterday at a workshop to brief stakeholders on results from the 2017 International Visitors Survey.
“The International Finance Corporation approached TPA last year about conducting an online survey to find out how much money international visitors were actually spending on each of their
visits to Papua New Guinea,” Agus said.
“We do not have a fixed system in place to measure the value of international visitors spend in PNG, so we were keen to try out the concept proposed by the IFC through the engagement of the New Zealand Research Institute.
“The results are quite interesting as they now provide us with a benchmark or an index with which to measure our tourism income.”
The survey is also important for investment and development purposes because for so long, TPA has had enquiries from potential investors wanting this information to complete their proposals or confirm their plans.
Agus said Government departments are also able to use the survey data and statistics to drive investment opportunities for PNG in tourism and other economic sectors.
“For the World Bank and Tourism Promotion Authority, it gives us solid information needed to identify relevant infrastructure and product development needs on the ground, especially in Milne Bay and East New Britain, which we are developing as tourism hubs for PNG,” he said.
Agu said the information would be presented to the Government to justify funding for the Tourism Promotion
Authority through the annual budget.