Published on : Tuesday, June 10, 2014
The Pacific island resort, Niue is hoping to boost tourist numbers further now that its recently extended airport terminal has officially opened to business.
In the past year or so the island has seen significant growth in its tourism industry with an 83 per cent rise in tourist spending since the Matavai Hotel was upgraded.
As with many parts of the Pacific, tourism is the primary force behind economic development on Niue.
At the moment it gets a merely 7000 tourists a year and hopes to boost this to 10,000. The Premier Toke Talagi said his long term focus remained economic sustainability.
“Until recently most of the money has been spent on infrastructure but there’s been no real direction as to whether we should build a strong economy or not.
It’s very clear now that in fact the tourism industry is one of the things that the New Zealand government and ourselves are very happy to continue to build,” said Talagi.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key visited Niue briefly last week and tourism development was among the topics discussed with officials and Niue Government leaders. He says New Zealand would contribute about 1 million US dollars towards boosting Niue’s industry and also promised additional tourism aid of 850,000 a year for the next five years.
Francesca and James Voza are tourists who from England but currently live in Wanaka in New Zealand. They say they chose Niue for their holiday because not a lot of people knew about the place.
James Voza said: “Not many tourists come here, so we thought ‘let’s go and give it a go’.”
Francesca Voza added: “We heard it’s got really good diving and snorkelling spots and we both love to dive.”
New Zealand’s newly appointed ambassador to promote economic development in the Pacific, Shane Jones, says Mr Talagi was quite insistent that things could be done better.
Niue’s premier Toke Talagi said that in an encouraging trend recent evidence shows that small numbers are returning to Niue to re-settle permanently.
Tags: The Pacific island resort
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