Islands Business - Tourism: SOLOMONS’ TOURISM NEEDS MORE THAN A NAME CHANGE

Tokuru confident of reaching 20,000-visitor target

Evan Wasuka
Solomon Islands’ tourism authority—the Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau—will need more than a name change to get the industry back on track.

Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau manager Michael Tokuru. Photo: Dev Nadkarni

The name change is part of its new three-year corporate plan aimed at providing the bureau with a better marketing brand. Under the corporate plan, the bureau will be renamed as Tourism Solomon Islands.

Bureau manager Michael Tokuru says its new name—Tourism Solomon Islands—will provide a better marketing brand for the country as well as reinvigorate its tourism campaign.

“The name itself sells, we are currently in the process of registering it,” says Tokuru.

The bureau and industry stakeholders are aware it will take much more than a name change to get the industry performing.

Solomon Islands has all the assets of a typical island paradise—white sandy beaches, clear blue seas and all-year-round sunny weather.

Hit core market: But three years of ethnic tension, political rioting in 2006 and fiery diplomatic relations with the country’s main tourism market, Australia, have been tough on the industry.

Not to mention the bad publicity surrounding the April 2 tsunami, which hit the country’s prime tourism hotspot area in the Western Province.

Tokuru, who has just had his employment contract renewed, says the bureau is going to hit its core market harder with a more aggressive marketing campaign.

“For the last couple of years, we have been slack about this. We realise were are competing with Tonga, Vanuatu and Fiji for the same source market—Australia,” he says.

Solomon Islands may have a lot to offer visitors in terms of wildlife and culture, but the critical factor lies in its visitor arrivals.

Solomon Islands currently pulls in 12,000 visitors per year, a pittance in comparison to its regional neighbours. But the bureau is forecasting that by 2010 and if all goes according to plan visitor arrivals should hit the 20,000 mark.

According to the tourism department this will mean a S$200million boost to the economy.

And the 20,000 visitor target is on all accounts a realistic goal. In 1998, before the violence of the ethnic tension set in, Solomon Islands hit a high of 18,000 visitors before it dropped to a low of less than 4000 visitors in 2002.

To improve Solomon Islands brand recognition, the bureau has done away with its “Solomons discover somewhere different” slogan to a much snappier “Solomon Islands discover somewhere completely different.”

Because of the bad publicity in Australia over the recent political events in the Solomons, the bureau will be launching a public relations campaign to try and convince Australians that Solomon Islands is a safe and friendly tourism destination.

“We believe the media (in Australia) has not been kind to Solomon Islands over the past three years.

"We need to get the message out that the country is peaceful and has a lot to offer,” said Tokuru.

The bureau is currently in talks with an Australian public relations firm about the campaign.

A distinctive feature of this publicity campaign is that after its first year of operation the bureau will be turning to corporate bodies to sponsor its continuation.

He says it will be up to the stakeholders to chip in and drive the campaign.

A key area to drive tourists to the Solomons says the bureau is the use of internet marketing.

A recent survey on visitor arrivals had tagged the internet as the most important and most frequently used source of information for visitors.

One of the bureau’s key recruitments will be the employment of an internet and advertising technical advertiser.

“We need to do more work in enhancing our capability in using the internet,” says Tokuru.
Internet the tool: The bureau is currently working on upgrading its website so that all tourism operators, licensed to the bureau, will have a single page on its www.visitsolomons.com.sb site.

Linked to this will be the recruitment of a researcher to improve the bureau’s data capacity.

The bureau says for long it has been plagued by data weakness. But by setting up an in-house research unit, information for marketing purpose will be easily available.

Apart from the internet, the bureau is pushing its marketing across more traditional mediums including radio, print and television.

In late September, the bureau’s ad was aired on BBC World’s Asia Pacific feed, the bureau’s first such foray into the world of international television advertising.

Tokuru says the ad has given the Solomon Islands access to a wider market than ever before.

On the home front, the bureau has also entered into an agreement with One News Television for short documentaries on provincial operators.

The aim of the docos is to feature the beneficial impact of tourism at the grassroot level.

This is a reflection of the new tourism strategy—to promote grassroot operators as well as the big hotel operators.

For too long says Tokuru, the big boys in Honiara have been the focus of the country’s tourism strategy.

According to the 2006 statistics, hotels and resorts account for over 1000 rooms while guesthouses register around 600 rooms.

But the proliferation of eco-lodges and home-stays throughout the provinces signals a change in the make-up of the market.

The new corporate plan recognises the importance of the small-scale operators who have been tagged as the future of the industry.

A new initiative that will have an impact on these new operators once it is in place is a plan to put in place minimum standard conditions for accommodation providers which will be enforced by the bureau or by the operators association.

The quality factor which the bureau proudly promotes in its mission statement—“to satisfy holiday travellers' expectations of a unique holiday in Solomon Islands” is vital to the Solomons’ experience, says Tokuru.

By improving the quality, the bureau is hoping this will pay off with visitors shelling out more for the improved experience and a higher return for operators.