SUVA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Fijian government pledged Friday continued support for the tourism industry which was the backbone of the island nation's economy in the pre-COVID-19 era.
The tourism industry contributed about 1 billion Fijian dollars (about 489.7 million U.S. dollars) towards Fijian government tax revenue each year alone, according to Fiji's Minister for Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport Faiyaz Koya, stressing that the tourism industry has been the country's biggest economic contributor.
The tourism industry, which once accounted for over a third of the Fijian gross domestic product (GDP), has been most affected by COVID-19.
"So, it is important we do what we can to support each other as we endeavor to reinvent our businesses, our communities, and of course, the industry and the economy at large," he said at a tourism Talanoa(dialogue) session in Nadi, the nation's third-largest city.
The minister praised the industry for its contribution to the country's economy, saying "any form of recovery is dependent on the resumption of quarantine-free international travel and tourism."
Fiji, with a population of around 900,000, is blessed with 333 tropical islands.
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, China was Fiji's fourth largest tourist market, with nearly 50,000 Chinese visitors each year and earnings from the Chinese market accounting for about 5 percent of the country's total tourism earnings.
In recent years, Fiji received more than 800,000 visitors per year. The Fijian government even has set a goal of developing the tourism sector to a 2.2-billion-Fijian dollar (1-billion-U.S.dollar) industry by 2021.
Last year, Fiji's visitor arrivals reduced by 87 percent to 147,000 visitors to pre-1990 levels due to the pandemic. In January this year, the number of visitors was down to 1,000 by an alarming 98.5 percent from about 65,000 in January 2020. Enditem
