International visitation high

 

International visitation to the Solomon Islands is up this quarter.

Visitation rose by 29 percent in June, with the number of visitors from Australia increasing by nearly 62 percent.

Official figures released by the Solomon Islands National Statistics Office this week show a total of 2,561 international visitors entered the country in June.

Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau (SIVB) CEO, Josefa Tuamoto said it was an improvement over sluggish performance last quarter when figures dropped by 3 percent compared to the same time last year.

Mr Tuamoto said he is confident of an even stronger result next quarter, which will reflect the influx of visitors who came to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal at events across the country.

The June total brought the number of visitors for the past six months to more than 11-thousand. That was a 5.5 percent increase over the number recorded in 2016.

Australian visitors continue to be the largest group of international arrivals.

But there were increases in other markets, including New Zealand and the US, with jumps of 10.6 percent and 29.5 percent, respectively. Visitation from Papua New Guinea spiked by 128.5 per cent.