Papua New Guinea losing "millions" from Japanese tourism market

THE Tourism Promotion Authority says Papua New Guinea is currently losing millions in tourism dollars from the Japanese market and all relevant government agencies must quickly work together to address the problem.

PNG TPA chief executive officer Peter Vincent said major tour operators across the country were experiencing large booking cancellations by Japanese tourists following a Level 2 Travel Alert issued by the Japanese government for the interest and safety of its citizens.

The Level 2 Travel Alert prevents group travels by Japanese tourists to PNG however individuals can travel here but “at their own risk”.

Vincent said the Level 2 Travel Alert was issued in August following major security breaches at the Jacksons Airport including the killing of a local businessman and the exchange of gunfire between a disgruntled resource landowner and police.

He said while these incidents may be localised in nature, however, given the existing negative image perception of PNG abroad, that in the overall scheme of things, they caused more damage than good for PNG’s standing overseas.  

He said many PNG tourism operators have expressed their concern to the TPA that they were losing business in the millions because of booking cancellations by Japanese agents and tourists.

“This has now become a government-to-government matter which needs to be addressed immediately to safeguard our growing tourism industry and particularly our local tourism operators,” he added.

Vincent said the Japanese Government was adamant that it would not relax the travel alerts unless it was convinced that the safety of its citizens was guaranteed particularly at Jacksons Airport which is the gateway to PNG.

Vincent said while TPA was already working with police and other relevant government agencies including Civil Aviation and Air Niugini to address the issue, the national government needed to be more proactive in its approach as such incidents can also impact on Air Niugini’s second weekly flight to Tokyo and the billion kina LNG project.

He said as a nation, our people also seriously needed to do away with their attitude problems which gave rise to such issues and they must take responsibility and ownership in the progress and development of this country.