Tourism Boss Joe Tuamoto Corrects Kiwi Reports

Fijilive - March 17, 2010

Tourism Fiji chief executive officer Joe Tuamoto is on his way to New Zealand now to address what he says are incorrect media reports about the effects of Cyclone Tomas on Fiji’s tourism industry.

“What needs to be cleared is that only the northern part of Fiji has been severely affected and not the whole of Fiji,” Tuamotu told FijiLive moments before he boarded a flight for New Zealand in the past hour.

“The majority of the country’s tourism plant is concentrated on Viti Levu and in the Mamanuca and Yasawa Islands and the cyclone just managed to brush past these,” he said.

Tuamotu said it was necessary to correct media reports to the contrary in Australia and New Zealand so that the industry does not suffer as a result of assumptions that infrastructure in Fiji had been severely damaged.

He said plants that had been affected made up only five percent of the tourism industry’s inventory.

While confirming that there had been no reports of injuries to tourists Tuamoto said a few hotels and resorts in the north has suffered minimal damage to property.

Tuamotu said he would be speaking to the public and the media in New Zealand about how exactly the cyclone had affected Fiji.