Official
visitor arrival numbers for Q3 2022 show that Solomon Islands has
got off to a far better than expected result, just three months
after the country reopened borders on 1 July after an 800-day
lockdown.
The figures, released by the Solomon Islands
National Statistics Office (SINSO), show a total of 2,481
international visitors travelled to the destination between 1
July and 30 September 2022.
Australians made up the bulk of the
numbers, with the 1,038 figure recorded comprising 41.8% of
the total intake for the period.
Dagnal
Dereveke, Acting CEO & Head of Corporate Services, said he was sure some might see the 2,481 total number as
representing a drop of almost 68%, but “when you look at our VA
count which we started from zero on 1 July 2022, this is a fantastic outcome
for the country’s tourism sector, what you might call a real
‘glass half full’ scenario.”
Visitor arrivals from key source markets such as
the US, New Zealand, Papua New
Guinea and Fiji, while still slow, had shown month-on-month
improvement across the quarter.
Prior to the pandemic, Solomon Islands welcomed some 29,000 international visitors annually with
Australian traffic constituting around 45% of the total and total
visitation growth annually ranging between 7-10%.
“Our primary focus is to regain those Australian
numbers as quickly as possible,” Mr. Dereveke said. “We know we
have a long way to go before we regain our pre-COVID numbers. But
we are very cautiously confident and with continuing effort, good
marketing and profile rebuild we can get back to where we were
before the pandemic in relatively short time.”
