Fiji Hotel Room Occupancy Declines

www.fijitimes.com - Monday, November 16, 2009

OCCUPANCY rates in hotels, resorts and licensed accommodations in the country averaged 38 per cent in the second quarter of this year, compared to 45.1 per cent for the same period in 2008.

This is revealed in the Fiji Islands Bureau of Statistics "Provisional Hotels and Tourist Accomodation Statistics, Quarter 2, 2009".

In the second quarter of this year, there were 862,512 rooms available but 331,373 were sold.

There were more than 1.9million beds available but 650,685 were sold.

The bed occupancy rate was 33.4 per cent compared to 37.6 per cent for the same quarter last year.

According to the bureau, earnings from accommodation, sales of food, liquor, telephone and other miscellaneous charges for the quarter was $118.3m compared to the 2008 second quarter earnings of $119.1m.

However, paid employment in the hotel sector increased by 8.1 per cent when compared to the same period in 2008.

In terms of regions, Suva's room occupancy rate of 40.5 per cent was almost similar to last year's figure of 41.7 per cent. In the first quarter of this year, the occupancy rate for the city was 36.3 per cent compared to 33.1 per cent in 2008.

The Nadi occupancy rate of 45.5 per cent was actually more than the first quarter rate of 41.9 per cent but lesser than quarter two 2008 rate of 51.1 per cent.

Lautoka accommodation occupancy rate for the second quarter was 18.3 per cent, a decline from the 24.7 per cent recorded last year for the same period.

Coral Coast experienced an 18 per cent decline, recording 40 per cent occupancy compared to 58 per cent for the same period last year.

The Mamanuca improved with an occupancy rate of 42.2 per cent from the 2008 figure of 40 per cent.