Sapotem Lokol Turisism, Emi Bisnis Blong Yumi Evriwan

Port-Vila, Vanuatu – 01 June 2022: The Vanuatu Tourism Office launched its motion design Sapotem Lokol Tourism digital consumer campaign, aiming to better educate and raise awareness amongst the general local consumers on the socio-economic impact of tourism throughout the country.

Pre-covid, Tourism directly contributed approximately 18% to GDP, and 46% indirectly as cited by numerous regional and international reports. In Vanuatu, tourism supports a wide range of people including tourism business owners, handicraft sellers, transport providers, landowners and agricultural producers to name a few. 

However, since the closure of the Vanuatu borders due to the covid pandemic, this has significantly impacted the downfall of international tourism and travel into Vanuatu causing the closure of many tourism businesses since March 2020. This obviously has had a devastating impact on the broader economy including our tourism industry. 

Following this border closure, Vanuatu tourism then relied solely on its domestic tourism market to maintain and support a number of operating businesses and to ensure employment is still provided to our people. 

The implementation of the domestic tourism marketing strategy in the last two years, was built around resilience for business continuity to keep our tourism industry going. The domestic tourism market has also contributed to the diversification in offerings by the tourism operators to consumers providing the investment opportunity for the development of niche product offerings such as the Agritourism experiences of value addition and farm to table, Sports Tourism with dedicated sporting events, Corporate Tourism around government and private sector travel and Food Tourism lovers who are on a journey to explore various cuisine to quench their taste buds. 

The tourism value chain interlinks various service providers and suppliers to package a product or a destination that will be sold and served to its customers. Along this chain, transaction of money is being facilitated showing a trail of money contributing to socio-economic development with revenue being generated. 

Every time a visitor books a flight, a bungalow, a taxi, a restaurant, a tour or a visit to the market has a ripple effect on the economy in general and is a direct spend of their tourist dollar to the local business operator providing their service. It is very important to understand how your tourism dollar is supporting our local tourism businesses at this time. 

This motion design shows us how tourism matters in any economic development, as tourism is a people centered sector providing employment and business opportunities, it is a sector that focuses on growth leading to poverty alleviation and at most times relies a lot on coordination for travel, coordination for planning, coordination for government and support to grow the sector. 

“In preparing for our borders reopening in July to allow for the return of international tourists we will still need coordination and business for our domestic tourism market which has so much potential to grow further, and we will continue to develop marketing initiatives to support its longevity.” says Lea Facarrello, Manager Long-Haul, Emerging and Domestic Market.

We often take tourism for granted, and forget to take the time to go and enjoy the plethora of tourism attractions, locations and experiences on offer in our own country. Tourism is for everyone to enjoy, and we are all tourists — every time we go and visit friends and family in other places, whether on the same island or on other islands, that’s tourism. Whenever we travel to other islands for work, for church or for sports, that’s tourism. When we stay the night at an island bungalow, or celebrate a special occasion at one of our restaurants and bars, that’s tourism.

We live in one of the most stunningly beautiful countries on Earth. VTO encourages everyone to keep Sapotem Lokol Turisim!