Fiji's tourism workers who receive $US104 a fortnight from the Covid-19 relief fund have been assured they will continue to get this even if they work on the weekends.
Fiji's attorney general, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. Photo: AFP/Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto
Attorney-General and Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said that through the government's Love Our Locals Initiative some hotels had been fully booked on the weekend.
But Sayed-Khaiyum said he had also noted that some staff were refusing to work the weekends because they feared they would will lose the $US104 benefit.
"Even if you go to work, obviously you will get paid for that. That won't be deducted from your $FJ220," he assured hotel workers.
"One of the hotels is fully booked right up until December for all the weekends. So in some instances, some of the hotels - we know on one of the long weekends - found it actually hard to even get 65 percent of people to come to work.
"So we've discussed with the FNPF (National Provident Fund) and the government has decided to bear the cost of this."
Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said 40 percent of Fiji's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is dependent on tourism which employed around 150,000 people prior to the pandemic.
Fiji had also recorded more than 800,000 visitors per year with the government's goal of developing tourism to a $US1 billion industry by 2021.
About 40,000 workers have been laid off and with travel restrictions in place to stop the spread of the deadly virus, the industry has been at a standstill for over six months.
Leleuvia Resort Photo: Leleuvia Resort
According to the Bureau of Statistics, Fiji's visitor arrivals for July this year totalled 711 compared to 96,376 for July 2019.
Of the 711 visitors, 56 came by air while 655 came by sea - most of them on fishing vessels.