Figures released by the Fiji department of information for August have revealed that the destination welcomed more than 59,000 visitors during the month.
The actual 59,339 figure eclipses the previous highest ever visitor number recorded for a month of August in Fiji’s tourism history, beating the previous best ever result set in the record-breaking 2008 (57,609) by 1,730 – a 9.9 percent increase.
The August result bring Fiji’s 2010 eight month total to just under 400,000, the actual 398,395 total in itself representing an 18 percent jump over the 337,554 achieved for the corresponding period in 2009.
Tourism FIJI CEO Josefa Tuamoto said the August 2010 result had again been bolstered by yet another very strong performance from the Australian market where figures recorded for the month reached 21,586.
The August result brings Australian numbers for the first eight months of this year to 178,171, a huge 31 percent gain over the 135,770 figure recorded for the same period in 2009.
Tuamoto said it was a similar story in New Zealand, where the 12,410 result achieved across August has taken the total of Kiwi visitors for the eight month period to 63,665, a 10.07 percent increase over the 57,841 achieved for the same period in 2009.
U.S. figures too have also shown good growth across the month, rising almost 6 percent from 4,486 to 4,754. Tuamoto said that this could be attributed to the U.S. economy slowly starting to return to normalcy.
Of particular note, he said, was the strong result emanating from China where the national tourist office and Air Pacific and various Fiji tourism industry partners have been hard at work all year promoting the destination.
Chinese visitor arrivals for the month reached 1,764, a 39 percent increase over the 1,268 figure achieved in 2009. The result brought the 2010 eight month total to 11,092, in itself a 31.8 percent increase over the 8,418 achieved for the same period in 2009.