As an advocate for sustainable tourism development in the region, the Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) has partnered with Mastercard on a project to provide data on Pacific Island tourism pre, during and post Covid.
The Pacific Islands have been particularly hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. This project was about helping several of the member islands’ Tourism Authorities rebuild tourism strategies through providing data insights. The project had three overarching phases including:
- Providing a deeper understanding of pre-Covid Destination markets and tourist behaviour – in other words, where do tourists come from and what do they do on holiday;
- An overview of what has happened in 8 key origin markets during the pandemic, – in relation to consumer sentiments, spend ability and international travel intentions, to inform potential outbound tourist behaviour and finally –
- Providing strategic identification of how Pacific Island Destination markets might consider key insights for tourism enhancement – ie. High value, low impact markets
The project has provided several key members with a holistic 360-degree view of the tourism, through the Mastercard Tourism Insights Platform, including elements such as
- Flight bookings, capacity and prices
- Hotel reviews and prices;
- Behavioural indicators such as tourism engagement and review of products, businesses and attractions; and
- Spend: Where, how and when tourists spend.
In addition, the Mastercard team has also provided in-market training for the Tourism Authorities of Samoa, Cook Islands, The Islands of Tahiti, Fiji and Vanuatu through monthly reporting on key insights and localised the platform to suit each market’s individual needs.
In acknowledging the joint partnership SPTO CEO Chris Cocker mentioned that this partnership would contribute positively towards assisting and rebuilding tourism strategies for National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) and the Pacific through data insights.
“Through the Pacific Tourism Statistics Strategy (PTSS), we have recognized the importance of research and insights for tourism recovery. Moving forward we remain committed to advancing the goals of the PTSS through partnerships and initiatives such as this tourism data insights project. We are grateful to MasterCard for the excellent achievements of this project and we look forward to working closely on other initiatives in future”, said Mr. Cocker.
“Mastercard is committed to ongoing support of the extremely important Tourism sector in the Pacific. As well as funding this important piece of work we have deployed loyalty programs and Tourism Insights into the region, providing something that was not previously available, what tourists actually spend their money on.” Craig Kirkland, Director, Pacific Islands, Mastercard Pty Ltd.
