Over 250 participants are expected to descend on Nadi, Fiji, between February 1 and 4 in what is being projected as the biggest ever tourism investment conference to promote the South Pacific islands region.
Planned by Proinvest and Centre for the Development of Enterprise (CDE), initiatives of the European Union (EU) and the ACP (African Caribbean Pacific) Nations, the meet will involve entrepreneurs and tourism industry decision-makers from Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, and Palau.
The event is being endorsed by top organisations in the region including the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) and the Pacific Asia Travel Organisation (PATA), besides respective country organisations in the tourism, finance and banking sectors.
Meant to work as a think tank for the growth of tourism in the region, the event will bring together various sectors of the industry ranging from hotels and resorts to transportation, infrastructure builders and equipment providers, besides a host of other businesses that have to do with the travel and tourism industry.
“The Partnership Meeting will comprise one-to-one business meetings, roundtable discussions, workshops and many networking opportunities,” says Farai Majuru, Proinvest’s Brussels-based coordinator for public-private dialogue, who was visiting Nadi in early December last year. Proinvest had organised a tourism seminar in Nadi early December, attended by officials of regional tourism organisations and executives of airlines interested in the Pacific islands besides other tourism stakeholders.
The seminar was to serve as a curtainraiser for the main event in February as well as to set the context for deliberations in February by focusing on the more important issues that confront the growth of the travel and tourism sector. Speakers at the seminar were drawn from academia, government, private business as well as organisations like the Forum Secretariat.
The workshops at the February event will cover, among other topics, “Tourism in the Pacific—trends and perspectives”; “The Pacific Islands—the future destination”; “How to do successful business and how to develop bankable projects, as well as a follow-up of the December seminar on tourism and transport. Speakers from all over the world will be invited.
Investors and entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to come together and discuss existing projects in need of expansion or re-development, new greenfield projects as well as well prepared projects with feasibility/marketing studies completed. These discussions are intended to result in joint ventures, management agreements, commercial and marketing agreements and technical assistance.
Funding would be available for qualifying projects up to 67 percent of the project cost or up to Euro 50,000 per project.
Over 100 companies are believed to have submitted projects and these are available as opportunities for entrepreneurs in the Pacific region to develop further and secure funding.
Says Sid Boubekeur, Proinvest’s sector coordinator, “This will be a unique opportunity to meet tourism ministers, national tourism organisations, investment promotion agencies, international and national financial institutions and transport companies representing 14 Pacific islands countries.”
