TPA: Tourism made K1.5bil

National

MORE than 210,000 visitors arrived in Papua New Guinea last year, injecting about K1.5 billion into the economy, says the Tourism Promotions Authority (TPA).
According to its 2019 visitor arrival report, the figure represented an increase of 8 per cent or 16,000 more people compared with 2018.
The report stated the visitors spent about K1.5 billion – an increase of 7 per cent in 2018 (about K1.4 billion).
“Out of the total expenditure, it was estimated that genuine tourists had spent a total of K715 million, an increase of 2 per cent or K15 million additional spending into the PNG economy compared with the K700 million spent in 2018,” the report said.
“The increase in expenditure by tourists was a direct result of the increase in holiday arrivals and length of stay in the country.”
The report said of the 210,000 foreigners that visited PNG last year, arrivals from Australia was the highest with 51 per cent (105,264) – a decrease of 2 per cent compared with 2018.
“The total (air and cruise) holiday arrivals from the Australian market increased by 1 per cent, while business arrivals decreased by 3 per cent compared with the 2018 arrivals,” it said.
“Holiday air arrivals from Australia increased by 4 per cent as a result of an increase in trekker numbers at the Kokoda Track in 2019.”
The report said strong growth in holiday arrivals from the Australian market since 2015 was a result of the effort put in by TPA Sydney office to promote and market PNG.
“The previous TPA Sydney team was able to carry out more marketing activities targeting tourists from all around Australia,” it said.
“One of it being the development of a comprehensive website for visitors to browse through and make travel decisions.”
The TPA office in Sydney also launched a TPA Australia Facebook and Twitter page to service as platforms to support and carry out marketing activities and boost tourist numbers.
The report said most of the tourists from Australia came to PNG by cruise ships.
According to the report, Japan is one of Papua New Guinea’s key source markets and one of the high-spending markets.
“In 2018, arrivals from this market picked up strongly by recording an increase of 35 per cent compared with the previous year,” the report said.
“This was a result of more tourists arriving by cruise ships to the country, however, holiday arrivals from this market dropped by 5 per cent in 2019 compared with 2018.”
The report said the North American market collectively generated about 6 per cent (12,711) of the aggregate arrivals in 2019, reflecting an increase of 5 per cent compared with 12,020 arrivals in 2018.
“PNG has very strong appeal as a niche destination among North American travellers interested in the outdoors, adventure and culture,” it said.
PNG’s second-largest holiday market the US continues to with only a tiny proportion of the US outbound travellers and awareness remains low.
“In the US and Canada, interest in PNG is strong, but due to recent terrorism/war and coronavirus threats around the world, arrival is expected to slow down this year,” the report said.
“In the Asian region, China and Korea are potential markets and represent about 8 per cent of the total arrivals. Most of the visitors from these markets arrive for business and employment – like all other Asian countries – however, holiday arrivals from the Chinese market has performed well.
“After a drop in 2017, outbound travel has started to rebound, and more Chinese were travelling overseas for holidays than ever, with 2019 showing an increase in holiday arrivals to PNG.”
The report said healthy growth recorded in 2019 is expected to slow down this year as a result of the coronavirus threat in China and around the globe.
“The terrorism/war threats around the world will be other factors that will stop tourists from travelling.”
Arrivals to the country remained high for the National Capital District. The report said healthy growth was seen from the holiday sector and this is expected to continue this year.

 

One thought on “TPA: Tourism made K1.5bil

  • Great news for our country. Let us increase our tourist numbers to at least 500,000 this year. Current government to inject K1 billion into Tourism and Agriculture to achieve this. Most of the fund to tourism should be targeting recruitment of all rural unemployed youths as reserve police constables who will provide security to our tourists. Put them all on pay roll and supervised by all PPC. Each district to create tourism hubs so that they bring in these much needed visitors. In East Sepik, we need a strong tourism marketing officer supported by the ESPG so that we have Sepik Crocodile festival and the others are fully funded and functional internationally. Secondly, the National Government must reduce the airfares for our tourists. Provide at least 80% subsidy to return airfares from tourists from Port Moresby to Wewak, Wewak to Ambunti and other parts of ESP. This will see money pouring into rural areas. Apply the same strategy to all Provinces, PNG will certainly grow over night. Police to take the lead from this K1 billion funding to protect tourists by engaging all unemployed youths in the LLGs and Wards in all Provinces.

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