French Polynesia is predicting a rise in tourist numbers as more border restrictions ease.
Mandatory Covid-19 tests were lifted on June 12 for passengers arriving in Tahiti.
French Polynesia Photo: Copyright: achimhb / 123RF Stock Photo
The French Pacific territory is a favoured, high-end tourist destination that throughout the pandemic has mostly been open to the US and France.
This is reflected in the tourism statistics which show American and French travellers make up almost 90% of arrivals.
The CEO of Tahiti Tourism Jean-Marc Mocellin said with more countries opening and travel restrictions easing even further, occupancy rates will increase rapidly.
"In May 2019 overall, we had overall 78.4% occupancy in French Polynesia, and in 2022 last month, we were at 80%.
Ahead of us, I can say that overall we are full, and I am talking around 85% occupancy until October," Mocellin said.
"The island of Moorea is running at above 95% occupancy while Bora Bora is above 85%. Tahiti is above 75% so we are pretty stressed in terms of availability," he said.
America and New Zealand are the closest countries to French Polynesia. The number of people with high income is much bigger in America and people see French Polynesia as a destination to go back to authentic Polynesia.
"France is because of traditional reasons and because we are still French and European. But the US is our number one market.
Mocellin said even without travellers from Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and South America, tourism in French Polynesia is out-performing US tourism by 18% and France by 22%.
Based on the statistics from a syndicate of resorts in French Polynesia the number of tourists this year will reach at least what they were in 2019, if not more with 200,000 to 220,000 visitors expected this year.
Air Tahiti ATR Photo: supplied
Air Tahiti has added a new aircraft to anticipate the number of tourist bookings in French Polynesia and the co-president of the associations of hotels in French Polynesia Christophe Guardia agrees the boom is due to the ease of restrictions.
"Since yesterday, the clients that came from Europe or that came from the United States they don't need to do a test all is open.
The restrictions the United States had, we had. If they do happen, we will adapt as we did previously. We will get cancellation of course but if the clients respect our restriction they will come of course."
"The majority of our employees have been kept even during the Covid pandemic. With the help that has been put in place, the salaries have been taken care of during that period by the government.
Moorea Photo: moorea.intercontinental.com/gallery
Therefore, when we opened the borders this allowed a good part of our trained personnel to be back at work. Now it is the high season that has already started.
We will bring a lot more personnel to add it on because it is the high season.
"Especially for the islands of Bora Bora. It is indeed a bit hard to find personnel for the specific areas of training but otherwise to find adequate staffing for most hotels is fine. "
It is worth noting that, unlike many Pacific nations that completely shut down their tourism industries and who are now experiencing staffing shortages as they reopen, French Polynesia has been partially open throughout the pandemic and has been able to compensate tourism staff in anticipation of the rest of the world reopening its borders.
The South Pacific Tourism Organisation has 21 government members and about 200 private sector members.
Its CEO Chris Cocker said the key to Pacific countries now being able to reopen their borders is that vaccination rates are high.
"Well, the opening of the borders means that we are going back to normality and it means there's going to be an economic resurrection.
It means that those in tourism can see and capture the market that is eager to travel," he said.