Tourism plans to ride Apec wave

By MALUM NALU
The tourism industry will be riding on the back of Apec 2018 to promote PNG next year and beyond, says Tourism Promotion Authority chief executive Jerry Agus.
He said this after the completion of Apec at the weekend and Government allocation of K50 million to the industry for next year.
“From a tourism industry perspective, Apec has really been a blessing for us in terms of marketing and promoting Papua New Guinea as a desired tourism destination,” Agus said.
“Over the duration of Apec, I was switching channels from BBC to CNN, to all the Australian channels.
“It was all on Apec and PNG was at the forefront.
“I could also see our cultural performers being shown on these stations.
“This clearly shows that Apec has really increased the profile of the country.
“Apec has been a major marketing and promoting tool for this country so we are very happy.
“At least, for the first time, Papua New Guinea has been given so much exposure.
“From a tourism industry perspective, that is something that we’ve been really struggling to do over the years – expose PNG to the outside world.
“Apec has done exactly that.
“Now that a lot more people are aware that there’s a country called Papua New Guinea, especially in the other 20 Apec economies, we have to ride on the back of that.
“We should now be doing more marketing and promoting so that people can come to PNG and see this great and beautiful country of ours.”
Agus also welcomed the K50 million allocation in the 2019 Budget to tourism.
“For the first time, since independence, tourism has been given a substantial amount of money: K50 million for development,” he said.
“Together with recurrent budget and other World Bank funding, it’s around K67 million.
“That’s a massive budget for TPA.
“However, getting a lot of money from Government doesn’t mean that it will translate automatically to more tourists coming in 2019 and onwards.”
Agus said high costs and ease of getting visas should be addressed.
He said the money would be spent on product development, and marketing and promotion.
Agus said capacity development would also be worked on with training institutions.