EU aid halt to hurt

Pacific tourism

A EUROPEAN Union deci sion to stop granting for eign aid to promote tourism would damage South Pacific economies that rely heavily on the industry, officials warned mid-July.

The main tourism body for a dozen Pacific countries fears the EU deci sion will strip its member nations of almost all the funds they spend inter nationally on advertising and promo tion as travel destinations.

Tourism Council of the South Pacific chief executive Levani Tuinabua said the new policy might work in the Caribbean and Africa, but failed to take into account the isola tion and smaller size of Pacific nations.

“The European prescription will not work because the needs of the Pacific are quite different from the Caribbean and Africa,” he said.

In a new policy published last November, the EU announced that tourism marketing and promotion would not qualify for foreign aid under the Lome Convention.

Funds formerly marked for tourism would instead be switched to “humane resource development,” pri vate sector assistance and environ mental preservation projects.

Tuinabua said the change will cost the member states most of the US$l.5 million (A 52.28 million) it spends annually on promotion and advertis ing and will strike at the heart of many Pacific economies.

The South Pacific should be treat

ed as a special case because the region is far more isolated, smaller and poorer than African, Indian Ocean and Caribbean beneficiaries of European aid, he said.

A delegation of Pacific tourism ministers was considering visiting EU headquarters in Brussels to argue the case, he said.

The council represents 13 national tourist offices ranging from Tuvalu, whose nine atolls and 10,000 Polyne sian people get some 300 tourists a year, to Fiji, which receives nearly 400,000 tourists.

The loss would impact badly on such small countries as Tuvalu, Kiri bati, Niue, Tonga, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

This is because these countries haven’t the funds to make a market ing impact in North America and Europe, where more prosperous nations spend millions on promotion.

Fiji and Tahiti, the South Pacific’s two main destinations, each spend about US$6 million (A 59.11 million) annually on promotion, but also rely heavily on the council for participa tion in major world tourism fairs in Europe and America.

Nearly all Pacific Island countries rate tourism as their main foreign exchange earner and in some cases, main economic hope for the future.

The council expects that visitors to the region in 1999 will reach one mil lion for the first time. Now, the search will be on to find a new donor or lobby the EU to stay. (AP) ■