Walk-the-talk to deliver tourism

By MALUM NALU
AUSTRALIA remains Papua New Guinea’s largest inbound tourism market, making over 50 per cent of the total holiday arrivals in the country, according to the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (PNGTPA) annual report presented in Parliament on Tuesday by Tourism Arts and Culture Minister Emil Tammur.
Australia was followed by USA (8 per cent), Japan (6 per cent), United Kingdom nd New Zealand (3 per cent), Germany (2 per cent), followed by collective Asia, Europe, China and other smaller markets.
“The year 2017 came with many challenges as Papua New Guinea was preparing for the general elections,” the report says.
“During the year, PNG received 181,840 international visitors to the country, a drop of 15 per cent compared to 2016.
“In PNG, cruise ship arrivals recorded a big increase by 20 per cent in 2017, thus boosting the holiday arrivals in the country.
“Out of the total arrivals in 2017, 26 per cent came for business, 35 per cent were on holiday including tourists that came on cruise ships, five per cent came to visit friends and relatives, 27 per cent came for employment, two per cent MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) and remaining five per cent visited the country for other reasons.”
Tourist arrivals to the country by cruise ship performed extremely well, while tourist arrivals by air slightly dropped in 2017, compared to arrivals recorded in 2016;
In 2017, 35 luxurious cruise ships carrying over 40,000 tourists visited PNG;
Holiday arrivals from most key source markets performed well in 2017, except for most Asian and European markets.
New Zealand, USA, Canada, France and other smaller markets performed extremely well in 2017 by recording positive growths, compared to the previous, as a result of more marketing and promotional activities carried out by PNGTPA; and
Italy, Israel and the Scandinavian markets contributed less than 1 per cent of the total visitor arrivals.
Tammur, who was reappointed to the same ministry he held under the O’Neill Government, said Prime Minister James Marape had given him a big task.
“Tourism is that focus for us now as it remains the most sustainable economic activity or industry in the world today.
“The time to talk about tourism as a potential economic driver is over.
“We must now walk the talk by delivering a fully-fledged and thriving tourism sector for our people in the next five years or so.
“Only through tourism can our local people in remote atolls and villages receive direct cash income to sustain their livelihoods.
“The Marape-Steven Government is committed to tourism development as a buffer industry for future generations by increased annual budgetary support to PNG TPA to cushion off the effects, once our extractive resources have been depleted.
Tammur said in 2017 and continuing on to today, the PNGTPA with the endorsement of his ministry had increased its level of engagement with the provinces and districts through signed memorandums of agreement (MOUs) for partnership in developing tourism in the provinces and districts through shared resources.
“Under these MOU arrangements, we are also seeing community-owned businesses coming on board to venture into tourism as a valued added option to their existing businesses and investment portfolios,” he said.
“PNG TPA through the support of the National Government had extended its partnership for the first time to include international agencies and financiers such as the World Bank.
“Under the Government’s Tourism Hub Concept, we have secured US$20 million or K60 million to roll out the programme in Milne Bay and East New Britain.
“This was the first time the tourism sector had received such a huge external funding.
“The projects identified under the Tourism Hub Concept for both Milne Bay and East New Britain have been fully rolled out in 2018 onwards.
“In 2017, the Tourism Promotion Authority was also involved in some exciting programmes such as the Kokoda 75th Anniversary Commemoration with other stakeholders and State agencies such as the Kokoda Track Authority, Conservation and Environment Protection Authority and Kokoda Initiative.
“Kokoda remains the iconic attraction for PNG by attracting an average of 3,000 tourists annually mainly from our primary source market in Australia.
“As part of the Kokoda 75th Anniversary Commemoration, I as the Minister responsible launched the first movie documentary, ‘Last Man Standing – The Last Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel’, which was popular and very successful even among our local audience.”
Tammur said since 2017, TPA had also increased funding for major cultural festivals around PNG.
“Our colourful and vibrant cultural festivals are a major tourism attraction but many festivals have suffered, not only due to the fact that cultural festivals are expensive to run but also because of lack of funding support from provincial and national governments and also lack of support from the corporate sector through sponsorship arrangements.