Covid-19 Pandemic Impact on a ‘Tourism Operator’

Local tourism business operator Mr Sapia shares his struggle to keep his tourism operation surviving through this pandemic….

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

Isles Media Tourism Reporter

MANY sectors throughout the world have felt the negative impact of the invasion of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic.

One of the major sectors being hit hard is the ‘tourism sector’.

With the Covid-19 pandemic and having the country’s borders unstably closing and reopening, there has been a major decline in international tourists travelling to tourist destinations all across the world apart from domestic visitors only travelling within countries of residence.

As a result, tourism operators, national governments and countries as a whole have experienced great loss from the benefits of the ‘tourism industry’ on which the industry’s future outlook is still at uncertain times.

Coming back to ground level from such global experience, Mr Richard Sapia from Central Islands Province (CIP), one of many local tourism business operators in Solomon Islands shares how his tourism business at Tulaghi is also affected since the pandemic occurs.

Despite the Covid-19 hiccup, Mr Sapia at present strives to keep his ‘small scale’ tourism business operations continuing.

According to Mr Sapia who is from Ngella and Savo islands, he first came up with the idea of establishing his small tourism business called ‘Tulagi Tour’ way back in 2018, purposely to fill up the gap of not having a tour guide service at Tulaghi during then.

Starting as a ‘free guide’ to gain experience, Mr Sapia later started imposing a ‘tour guide’ fee for guests.

“I established Tulaghi Tours purposely to fill up the gap that there was no tour guide service at Tulaghi during 2018,” said Sapia.

“I started as a free guide to gain experience and later started to impose a tour guide fee for my guests.

“As news of my tour guide service circulated, tourism operators at Tulaghi started requesting me to carry out tour guides for them.

“At the start, a former CIP tourism mentor under the Australia Volunteer International [AVI] really supported me with technical support.

“I formally registered my business on January 2019 with the ‘Company Haus’, and later with ‘Tourism Solomons’ and the Central Province government.

“My operations in 2019 was really good. I also do networking with Honiara-based travel agencies and was very helpful in terms of marketing. I engage ‘two’ tour guides, a boat driver and a crew, my wife helps out with logistics and other stuff including administration and operation matters. Though Covid-19 practices are not yet imposed, but we do encourage people in our community at Tulaghi and its surrounding areas to get vaccinated in order to protect our community.

“With my tours, I do history tours, village visits, snorkeling tours and an island hopping tour.

“We also offer customised tours for our guests who wish to do tours of their own preferences.”

According to Mr Sapia, he started facing the negative impact of Covid-19 around March 2019.

“I started to feel the impact of Covid-19 around March 2019. All my bookings were cancelled and the number of visitors decreased,” said Sapia.

“For the past two years, it has been really bad. I only received guests domestically that was like two years ago.

“In terms of affiliation, I also affiliate my business with Young Entrepreneurship Council Solomon Islands (YECSI) and benefited from the services they offer such as the business mentoring support and training. YECSI also connected me to access a business coach under the business Link Pacific program. It was a very useful program. Under the coaching program, I was able to develop a business adaptation plan to keep my small business surviving through this pandemic.”

Facing hiccups, Mr Sapia has now engaged as well in offering boat transfers [Tulaghi-Honiara-Tulaghi] for passengers on a daily basis. This operation is purposely to help maintain his small tourism business despite the Covid-19 Pandemic.

“For now we are offering boat transfers from ‘Tulaghi-Honiara-Tulaghi’ for passengers on a daily basis,” said Sapia.

“Our schedule is Monday to Saturday except for days that are affected by bad weather. We also offer boat hire for companies, agencies and private businesses. Our boat has sea safety equipment as we follow strict sea safety rules. As part of our plan, we are now selling petrol as well. This is just to keep us going. On tours, we are still doing tours but for our domestic visitors only.

“In terms of support from the provincial government of CIP, the province has a small support grant for operators. I received a small grant support from the province and I appreciate the support. I would also like to thank the national government through the economic stimulus package program. I was a recipient and was able to purchase an outboard motor engine as the project now supports my operations.

“For boat transfers and hire, contact us at ‘Tulagi Tours’ tulagitours@gmail.com or on mobile 7440806 or visit our Facebook and Instagram page @tulagitours. Apart from that, we look at alternative sources of income to keep us going.

On the future outlook since borders are not yet open, Mr Sapia said he cannot predict how things will be like in the coming year.  But, he believes there will still be a low number of visitors.

“Even if borders open again next year, things will slowly come back to normal. However, our focus is very much on domestic tourism now as we are still offering tours,” said Sapia.