Australia Still Tops Visitors’ Record In Solomon Islands

Australia has been recorded as the country that has many of its nationals visiting the Solomon Islands in the fourth quarter of last year.

Government Statistician Douglas Kimi revealed this while releasing the visitors statistics produced by the Solomon Islands National Statistics Office (SINSO) recently.

The travels were being recorded from visitors by country of residence, visitors by month, tourists, visitors by purpose of visit, visitors by age group, visitors by occupation and visitor by carrier.

“Australia continue to dominate the ranks of international arrivals to the Solomon Islands with 39.9 per cent,” Mr Kimi said.

“There was a 2.8% increase in Australian visitors compared to the third quarter of 2017,” he added.

“The second largest group of visitors were from Other Asia with 7.9 per cent, followed by Papua New Guinea 7.0 per cent, Fiji 6.6 per cent, Other Pacific countries 6.1 per cent, New Zealand 5.8 per cent and the United States of America with 5.1 per cent.”

On visitor arrivals by month, Mr Kimi said the month of October recorded the highest number of arrivals in the fourth quarter of 2017 with 2,500 visitors.

“This was followed by month of November with a total of 2,317 visitors and December the least with 2,305 visitors.

“This is a slight down turn from a record high of 2,589 visitors in August 2017,” he stated.

On tourist, Mr Kimi said the fourth quarter 2017 recorded the highest number of tourists with 2,947 visitors compared to the previous quarters of 2017 and their average length of stay was nearly 15 days.

“Australian residents still made up the highest proportion of tourists with 41.6 per cent for the quarter and stayed in the country for an average of 12.7 days.

“Residents from the United States of America made up the next largest group of tourists with 8.4 per cent, followed by Other Asia 8.2 per cent, Papua New Guinea 6.8 per cent, China 5.0 per cent, Fiji and Other Pacific Countries with 4.8 per cent.”

Mr Kimi added that the most common reason for visitors visiting the Solomon Islands during the quarter was for a holiday or vacation by 38.4 per cent.

“This was followed by visiting for business or a conference 22.9 per cent, other reasons 18.7 per cent,visiting friends and relatives 17 per cent and transit & stop over 3 per cent.

“The distribution of visitor arrivals by broad age groups for fouth quarter 2017 showed that 72.8 per cent of Visitors were in the 25 years to 64 years age range. The youngest age group, 0 -14 years, represented 5.5 per cent of the arrivals while the oldest age group, 65 years and over made up 8.4 per cent of total visitor arrivals.The remaining 4.1 per cent were visitors who did not state their age.

“Male visitors represented more than half of the total visitors arrivals by 65.5 per cent and female visitors made up 34.5 per cent of arrivals this quarter,” Mr Kimi explaned.

He said visitor by occupation showed that the “other occupation” category mades up the largest percentage of occupations of 37 per cent during the quarter.

“This was followed by visitors who stated their ocupation was from the professional and technical group by 31.3 per cent, no work 11.5 per cent, administration & managerial positions 10.3 per cent and production and related workers make up 3.3 per cent.

“The most popular carriers during the quarter were Solomon Airlines who carried 43.6 per cent of total visitors, followed by Air Niu Guinea 29.5 per cent and Virgin Australia 18 per cent,” Mr Kimi said.

(Source: SINSO Media published in Solomon FRESH-BEAT ONLINE 12 April 2018)

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