The taste of the islands
p. 41 · Read in the full issue
THE strategy for developing a regional niche market for Pacific islands spices is simple. Every hotel in the Pacific islands should be persuaded to serve a pod of island vanilla in its sugar bowls.
Gourmets agree that the delicate perfume emitted from the pod enhances the sugar’s flavour. Hotel tables will take on a new Pacific islands characteristic as the vanilla pod becomes a conversation piece.
Gift shops at hotels and airports could follow up on the marketing by
stocking attractively packed vanilla
pods for tourists to take home as gifts, or for their own sugar bowls.
As I said, simple!.
It’s not my idea, though. It is one of a number of good ideas put forward by former top Fiji govern ment official Peter Thomson, now
managing director of his own Auckland-based investment management and consultancy company, Thomson Pacific (NZ). He made them to the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders in Papeete at the end ofjune, where he was asked to suggest ways of increasing Pacific island exports.
The point he was making with vanilla pods was that there were great opportunities for providing island hotels with local food and beverages, and that this itself could give hotel cuisine more character and attraction and thereby lift the attractiveness of island tourism in general.
He pointed out that the market in hotel food and beverages was steadily growing, yet a little more than half of the food and beverages consumed in island hotels was imported from outside the region. The development of a recognisable island cuisine, with quality produce, was thus worth pursuing, and the islands had to address the issue of what could be done to raise the level of island content.
He stressed that a Pacific island cuisine had to be acceptable to international tastes. It did not necessarily have to be traditional, but it should be regional and presented in new and tasteful ways for an international clientele. He made the point that the main reason hotels purchased so much imported food and beverages was that local products were often inconsistent in quality and supply. Even when quality was okay, some islands couldn’t supply enough. However, to overcome this, a regional cuisine might have regional suppliers, with those Pacific islands that are more efficient suppliers of particular products given free access to the hotels of the whole of the region.
Peter went on to discuss a number of ways in which a demand for Pacific island products of every kind, not only for the hotel trade, could be stimulated. This brought him to the matter of the most efficient marketing tools, and he suggested establishing a Regional Trade Commission Service.
He envisages something much wider than the present
arrangements, which comprise the Forum Secretariat’s Trade and Investment Division in Suva, the South Pacific Trade Commission
in Sydney (which I manage), and
the South Pacific Trade Office in Auckland. He suggests that the new service, which would integrate or rationalise the existing arrange ments, should be headquartered in Suva and extended to cities other than Auckland and Sydney such as Tokyo, Los Angeles and Brus sels. It should be staffed by island nationals and there should be a minimum of red tape.
The offices in other countries would be funded by the govern ments of the countries in which they were based, as island aid projects, or possibly a Pacific Islands Trade Commissioner could
be installed in an existing Pacific island embassy or consulate.
Peter points out truly that if the islands have to have a strong and sustained promotional presence in overseas markets of interest to them, they have to have trade representation in those markets. Furthermore, such a trade commission service would be the means of developing an indigenous corps of people with marketing expertise in islands. It would enable islanders to build careers in marketing and promotion and, he says, help do away with the practice of some island nations of filling their overseas trade posts with personnel who have no expertise or real interest in promotion and marketing.
Peter has had a great deal of practical experience in trade matters at both private and government levels, and I endorse his suggestions. I don’t however go along with him on the proposal that such a trade service should be funded by aid. I think the island countries that benefit from such a service should also contribute to it. In my view, if they pay for at least part of the service they will value it more highly, and they would also be entitled to control it and ensure it was doing the job they wanted.
This might sound an unusual point for me to make, because the funds for the South Pacific Trade Commission in Sydney are provided by Australian government aid even though the commission is an arm of the South Pacific Forum. As it happens, I get no instructions or directives at all from Australia but one could argue that if Australia wanted to use its influence to call the tune, it might be hard to argue against it.
Anyway, owning your own organisation doesn’t
preclude you from soliciting funds for some of its projects or other activities, which, for example, is how the Fiji Trade and Investment Board operates.