Australia Still Tops Visitors’ Record
DESPITE, a 14 per cent drop, Australia continues to maintain its inflow of visitors to Solomon Islands, the latest quarterly statistical report revealed.
Australia has been recorded as the country that has many of its nationals visiting the country in the first quarter of 2019, despite, a 14 per cent fall/drop in the quarter compared to the 2018 latter/last quarter.
Solomon Islands National Statistics Office (SINSO) revealed that though Australians remain the largest group of visitors to visit the Solomon Islands, generating a 37.9 per cent points, there was a 14.0 per cent decline to 2,279 in Australian visitors noted compared to the fourth/final quarter of 2018 figure 2,650.
Government Statistician, Douglas Kimi, while releasing the report stated that the next largest group of visitors were from Other Asia with 12.4 per cent, followed by New Zealand by 7.4 per cent, Other Pacific by 7.1 per cent, Fiji 6.3 per cent, United States of America 5.8 per cent, and China 5.0 per cent.
On Visitor arrivals by month, Mr. Kimi said that March recorded the highest number of arrivals in the first quarter of 2019 with 2,378 visitors, followed by month of February with a total of 1,891 visitors and January the least with 1,750 visitors.
“First quarter 2019 recorded a total of 1,718 tourists and they spent an average of 14.9 days in the country. Australian residents still made up the highest proportion of tourists by 38.3 per cent for the quarter and stayed in the country for an average of 13 days.
“Residents from the United States of America made up the next largest group of tourists by 9.2 per cent, followed by Other Pacific by 8.7 per cent, Other Asia by 8.0 per cent and China 5.5 per cent.
“The most common reason for visitors visiting the Solomon Islands during the quarter was for Other reason 30.4 per cent, followed by Business and Conference 27.4 per cent, visiting for Holiday and vacation 23.8 per cent, Visiting friends and relatives 13.6 per cent and Transit & Stop over 4.8 per cent.
“The distribution of visitor arrivals by broad age groups for first quarter 2019 showed that 77.3 per cent of Visitors were in the 25 years to 64 years age range. The youngest age group, 0 -24 years, represented 11.0 per cent of the arrivals while the oldest age group, 65 years and over made up 7.9 per cent of total visitor arrivals. The remaining 3.8 per cent were visitors who did not state their age.
“Male visitors represented more than half of the total visitors’ arrivals by 72.3 per cent while female visitors made up 27.7 per cent of arrivals in the quarter,” Mr. Kimi stated.
On visitors by occupation, he said the: “Other occupation” category made up the largest percentage of occupations by 42.7 per cent during the quarter, followed by “Professional and Technical” 25.6 per cent, No work 9.6 per cent, Administration and managerial position 9.2 per cent, and Service worker 5.9 per cent.
“The most popular carriers during the quarter were Solomon Airlines who carried 44.2 per cent of total visitors, followed by Air Niugini with 25.3 per cent and Virgin Australia 14.7 per cent.”
Source: SINSO Media
