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Walkabout: Damage Control Comes to Paradise
Fiji--beautiful one day, dangerous the next
By DAFFYD RODERICK
June
22, 2000
Web posted at 2:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 2:30 a.m. EDT
Hands up everybody going to Fiji this summer? Aha...I thought so. Nothing like a coup to cool the ardor of holidaymakers. Tourism's funny that way. Break out the guns and chances are good you can pack away the umbrella drinks. The archipelago of 300 islands--299 of which haven't seen skirt nor skull of coupster George Speight and his merry band of indigenously correct terrorists--is facing a public relations disaster.
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The tourists that normally clog its beaches are nowhere to be seen. Hotel and restaurant staff and other tourism-related workers find themselves being laid off or with drastically reduced hours, which can put a dent in the most wholesome of smiling faces. Tourist numbers have dropped off by 60% this month alone. The Fiji Visitors Bureau estimates the tourism industry has lost at least $20 million since last month's coup, or $1.3 million a day, as the security crisis continues to drive tourists away. It says 38,000 people visited Fiji last June, but so far less than 7,000 have arrived this month.
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The Sheraton Denarau Resort, at near 80% occupancy this time last year, is hovering at around 30%. "We're not in a position to comment on the coup," the resort's manager, Anne Busfield, said. "We're focusing on the fact that we're still open and still fully operational." If only the government could say the same thing.
The Fiji Visitors Bureau is mounting a p.r. counteroffensive that focuses on the fact that if you visit Fiji, chances are good you won't see anything disturbing. No guns, no mobs, no military checkpoints. It's a geography problem, they say. As long as you don't go to Suva, it's no big deal. The big issue facing them isn't that their government is being held hostage, it's that people don't understand how large and disparate Fiji is. In their latest press release, they include a comment from an Australian visitor that sums up their strategy: "Unfortunately the media coverage is overexaggerating the impact of the problems. We are glad we ignored the news, because this place is paradise."
Paradise lost maybe. While tourists might not see any unpleasantness on the way to and from the airport, it's a bit much for travelers, sensible ones that is, to ignore that the elected government is being held at gunpoint and a very nasty little battle, based on race, is being fought. Foreign offices of the United States and Britain, among others, are warning travelers to stay clear. Blithely traveling into troubled waters--such as those that surround Sipadan Island--has recently proven to be a bad idea. Visiting a country that is having its constitution forcibly rewritten by ethnic extremists moves beyond naive and into plain dumb. If the people calling the shots don't respect the rights of Indians who have lived there for generations, I have my doubts on how far my Visa Gold Card will take me.
The interim military government has announced that it's going to increase the budget for marketing tourism. Good idea. They've appointed the Fiji Visitors Bureau to "rebuild the tourism industry to pre-crisis visitor arrival figures." Another fine plan. But they just might want to wait until the guns are put away, to launch it.
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