Refocusing Guadalcanal Tourism to Boost Potentials
BY MYRNE LIVETT
GUADALCANAL TOURISM refocused on a 10-year plan to boost tourism potentials on the island and rekindle existing ones.
Provincial Tourism Officer Jacinta Koli Vagha told Isles media in an exclusive interview at the Guadalcanal province headquarters this week.
She pointed out that as the only Tourism officer with assistance from Mr Stuart Allardice, an Australian Volunteer under the Volunteer Program under the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the tourism division is focusing on developing niches and potential sites in the Island.
“He helps me with a 10 years plan, where we put in plans for the province for another 10 years which the tourism division will follow.
“Before the COVID-19 I also work with another volunteer, formulating a 10 years plan but we are not able to complete it due to the pandemic. So we started it again, that’s one of our updates.”
She explained, that the 10-year plan contains 10 major plans and within that the objectives, or the bits and pieces of the bigger plan, which she said is yet to be finalized.
“Another update for the province is tourism division has a significant project that should start this year, a multi-function building and covers culture and exhibition centre and information centre which we plan to build at Marau, will be funded by Ministry of the provincial government and should start this year, we still waiting for the funding.
“We also set up the Guadalcanal Tourism Council, which started before the COVID19 but is yet to register. That is the umbrella body that looks after three Tourism councils in the province, East Guadalcanal, West Guadalcanal and North and Central Guadalcanal Tourism Council.
“Guadalcanal have potential in surfing and tourism attractions inside our bushes in the middle of the Island as well as another side of the Island that people don’t know about.
“So the challenge we are facing here is infrastructure, we don’t have the proper infrastructure so we put together activities for the market. So we include that in the plan.”
“We also plan to involve community-based tourism, and we will work together with communities that want to involve in tourism, if a community wants to involve in tourism we will work with the community to make it a tourism destination, where people come in and just take them around the village, you involve tourists in daily activities of the village so that they can understand the daily living of the village, that’s part of the market we look forward too,” The Guadalcanal Tourism Officer said.
She pointed out that Guadalcanal has a lot of attraction sites, and the promotion of community-based tourism, it will help people to come in and see potential sites maybe in the middle of the Island, that is rarely visited by tourists, especially international visitors.
