Solomon Islands Governor General upbeat on the potential in the country’s tourism sector but has advised plans within the NTDS needed to be fully resourced
When speaking at the opening of the sitting of Parliament on Monday this week, the Governor General, Sir David Vunagi, GCMG, said that there was huge potential in the tourism sector, but cautioned that plans within the National Tourism Development Strategy needed to be adequately resourced.
Sir David said some of the challenges in the sector included lack of support infrastructure that would enable access to high potential tourism sites.
Quoting an article in the Solomon Times on Line yesterday, the Governor General reportedly said:
“There are also limited high quality accommodation facilities which can cater for the leisure tourism segment.”
“Lack of attractive investment incentives and unavailability of attractive sites for tourism development through investment was also a challenge.”
Such limitations had contributed to high travel and logistics cost and made it difficult to secure commitment by investors, which further exacerbated the already high business transaction cost associated with limited access to financial resources.
Sir David said the government aimed to address the various challenges through the National Transport core initiative, an ambitious 5 year plan year plan to connect the whole country.
To advance the initiative the government would work at establishing appropriate systems, policies and legislation to help bridge existing gaps and support the development of key infrastructure.
Under the DCGA Government the policy priority for the ministries responsible would be to actively engage and collaborate with relevant ministries, namely the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MID) and the Ministry of Communication and Aviation (MCA) in order to develop tourism infrastructures and upgrade airstrips in keys tourism destinations throughout the provinces.
The Governor General also outlined that the Ministry of Culture and Tourism would continue to engage with partners in the areas of infrastructure development, create workable partnership mechanisms, and work at opening access to financial tourism grant schemes for Solomon Islanders.
Source: Solomon Times on Line.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
