Pacific

Fiji will soon begin an aggressive tourist marketing campaign

11:01 am on 6 January 2009

Fiji will soon begin an aggressive marketing campaign, to drive tourist volume in 2009.

Visitor arrivals for 2008 are expected to top 570-thousand, a nearly nine percent increase over 2007.

But Tourism Fiji's chairman, Patrick Wong, says 2009 could be a more challenging year.

He says the industry will be affected by tough economic conditions, having more rooms to sell, and aggressive competition from South East Asia.

"We need to be a lot more affordable, and value for money, and just improve Fiji's current perception as safe and value for money. We will be embarking on aggressive tactical campaigns in Australia and New Zealand. We've got a much larger allocation for 2009, so there'll be branding as well, we haven't done branding for the past 3 years."

Patrick Wong says a television campaign will run in both countries for the next few months.