Concepto de Diseño

The importance of tourism to Vanuatu is well established with the total contribution of travel and tourism to Vanuatu being almost 50% of GDP (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015). Vanuatu is the ninth most tourism dependant country in the world, with tourism providing around one third of all jobs (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015). There are two ways to assess the contribution to tourism for an economy, the direct

contribution and the total contribution. A 2015 report by the World Travel & Tourism Council on Vanuatu defines the direct contribution as reflective of;

...the ‘internal’ spending on Travel & Tourism (total spending within a particular country on Travel & Tourism by residents and non-residents for business and leisure purposes) as well as government 'individual' spending - spending by government on Travel & Tourism services directly linked to visitors, such as cultural (e.g. museums) or recreational (e.g. national parks) (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015, p. 2).

According to this same report the "direct contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP in 2014 was VUV15,152.1mn (18.6% of GDP)" and reflective of hotels, airlines, travel agents, restaurants and transportation services (2015, p. 3). The wider indirect impact, or the induced effect, on the economy was VUV39,774.3mn in 2014 (48.8% of GDP), and the definition of this total contribution refers to the jobs and GDP that are supported through:

• Travel & Tourism investment spending – an important aspect of both current and future activity that includes investment activity such as the purchase of new aircraft and construction of new hotels;

• Government 'collective' spending, which helps Travel & Tourism activity in many different ways as it is made on behalf of the ‘community at large’ – e.g. tourism marketing and promotion, aviation, administration, security services, resort area security services, resort area sanitation services, etc.;

• Domestic purchases of goods and services by the sectors dealing directly with tourists - including, for example, purchases of food and cleaning services by hotels, of fuel and catering services by airlines, and IT services by travel agents.

• The ‘induced’ contribution measures the GDP and jobs supported by the spending of those who are directly or indirectly employed by the Travel & Tourism sector

(World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015, p. 3)

Cruise tourism is an increasingly important part of the tourism sector. Vanuatu’s tourism arrival data identify cruise and air arrivals for the last twelve years (VNSO, 2015) compared with cruise passenger arrival numbers. Figure 2, below illustrates flattening air passenger arrivals, but steadily increasing cruise numbers. It is difficult to

be certain of a direct correlation, but these figures reflect the increased arrivals as reported at the end of the Enterprise Challenge Fund (ECF) partnership between Carnival and Australian Aid (Coffey International Development, 2013).

Figure 9 - Graph of Vanuatu’s tourism arrivals by air and cruise, 2003-2017, created by author using information from Vanuatu National Statistics Office (VNSO, 2015).

Graph created from Vanuatu's September tourism arrival figures showing the difference between air and cruise passenger arrivals. This clearly shows cruise arrivals (orange) surpassing air arrivals (blue) by more than 5000 passengers per month since 2010. In 2015 TC Pam struck Vanuatu in March, but September arrivals do not appear

meaningfully affected. Cruise appeared more impacted in 2008 and this may have been the global financial crisis as this hit tourism by the third quarter. This data shows the stagnation of air-arrivals in comparison to cruise. This may be a response to the declining state of repair of the international airport in Port Vila. In contrast, cruise arrivals continue to grow, unaffected by the infrastructure problem.

To grow tourism, Pacific island nations need to increase their host capacity (i.e.: build more hotels, roads and facilities), and improve accessibility. In Vanuatu, the main international airport's runway is in such a poor state of repair that both New Zealand and Australia's national carriers refuse to land there (Air New Zealand, n.d.; Pacific Beat, 2016). Both Qantas and Air New Zealand cancelled their service to Vanuatu, resulting in far fewer flights arrivals. Reduced competition may have driven up the prices of the remaining flights. In comparison with Fiji, Tonga, Cook Islands and Samoa the price of flights to Vanuatu is doubled. For New Zealand residents, loyalty to Air New Zealand is a possible factor with New Zealanders preferring to travel somewhere on their network, with a direct connection, and where they can use accumulated airpoints or discounts.

The lack of direct flights from NZ is a serious problem for Vanuatu, and a 'bottleneck' of flights from Australia is caused by Qantas not operating their own planes to Vanuatu. A code-share arrangement with Air Vanuatu means that it is once again possible to book Air Vanuatu flights on the Qantas website, and take advantage of regional connections, frequent flyer deals and discounts. Growing land-based tourism requires large

infrastructure investment in hotels, resorts, runways, roads and facilities. Construction on the upgrade to the main international Airport on Efate has begun (at November 2017), but it will still be some time before there is a return to capacity. In the meantime, it is hoped that other infrastructure projects will be completed.

A major attraction of cruise tourism is that almost all the infrastructure needed to operate holidays is contained on the ship. The only non-negotiable requirement for cruise tourism to operate is reliable hydrological survey, or marine charts and these were updated recently (Coffey International Development, 2013). A wharf or jetty is preferred when choosing cruise destinations. The ability to conduct land-tours for the

passengers is a bonus, but the popularity of places like Champagne Beach, which mainly offers a remote beach experience, is testament to this not being necessary everywhere. Thus, cruise tourism can often start frequenting destinations well before mainstream tourism can catch up. Another attraction of cruise tourism is that there is little requirement for public-sector investment - cruise does not require airport runways, hotels or roads. Cruise companies prefer ports with clean public toilets and reliable day trip operators.

In 2012 Vanuatu published the ‘National Cruise Tourism Action Plan’ (Vanuatu Department of Tourism, 2012). This plan was written with “technical assistance and funding support” (p. 1) by P&O, or Carnival, a division of “the world’s largest leisure travel company” (Carnival Corporation, 2016a). This report was strongly biased towards the cruise operator and tourist experience and did not detail the host/local experience. In 2013, another report was released, the ‘Vanuatu Strategic Tourism Action Plan’ (Ministry of Tourism Industry Commerce & Ni-Vanuatu Business, 2013), a

collaboration between Vanuatu tourism and New Zealand Aid. This report, in contrast to the industry funded report, explicitly seeks to “improve the distribution of benefits to the different community groups throughout the islands in Vanuatu” (p. vii). This document acknowledges that tourisms negative impacts and demonstrates

harmonisation with New Zealand’s strategic action plan (New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2015).