Weekly Update From Tourism Tonga 2

Two of these have been diverted from their Samoa destination due to the Hurricane that is due to hit this weekend. The third is the Amsterdam which was due on Monday but because of the weather, it is not sailing to Niue and is now arriving in Nukualofa 36 hours early.

So it will be all hands to the pump tomorrow for the Seven Seas Mariner due at 7am tomorrow and then for the Amsterdam at 6pm tomorrow night and Mariner (Queen Salote Wharf) at 7pm.

All of the great team from the Cruise Ship steering committee and operators and agents are all making sure that the 2,500 passengers have a great time. The Visitor Information Centre will open for a period on Sunday (Thanks to the Ministry of Police for approving that) and a bus will be made available to transport people to church and out to the resorts if required on Sunday.

And while talking about Cruise ships, it is great to see the proactive operators in Vava’u working on a new strategy for the cruise ship visits there this year. Thanks to Greg for all the work you are doing. Marketing Manager Fay will be representing us at Seatrade in Miami in March as part of a team of 8 pushing to get more cruise visits next year. Ross represented Tourism Tonga last year and perhaps that’s why we have an extra 4 visits to Tongatapu this year!

It seems all of the hard work is paying off with increases in visitor numbers across the board and it’s thanks to the operators who are working hard on their businesses that we can make this happen. It has been encouraging that the summer season has been so strong but the numbers are really dropping away at present (that is the usual seasonal trend) As well as the 20% increase in NZ residents flying to Tonga last year, in the four months ending September we had an increase of 10.5% in Australian residents visiting the Kingdom - a healthy increase, and I am sure the numbers from September onwards are going to be even more significant. Comparing our performance to our Pacific neighbours, Tonga has the highest growth by far…well done Team Tonga!

I mentioned the great work of the Airline staff during the volcanic eruption but I omitted to mention the great Airport teams without which the turn-arounds would not have happened so smoothly. Not only did they make every flight smooth but they turned out for all of those never arrived!! TAL including AVSEC, ATS, Customs, Immigration, Quarantine.......there was not a squeak of complaint from any of them and it was the same teams going through the entire exercise; so some big hours by many. A big thank you to you guys and girls, you certainly went the extra mile.

Also a reminder that the ‘Free Brochures’ are at the Ministry of Commerce Tourism and Labour offices in Ha’apai and Vava’u waiting for operators to pick them up. So if you have a brochure, please uplift them…and a supply of the visitor guides as well.

Finally this week two of our team members are at consumer shows in NZ and Australia and Fay heads off mid-Feb to another. Mana is currently over in Sydney promoting Tonga and Seini is in Auckland at the Flight Centre show.