Wheels are now in motion as the country prepares for the 2023 Pacific Games – seen as a catalyst for future business events.
The Solomon Islands will host the Pacific Games in 2023, the first time the nation will serve as a venue for a major sporting event, and an opportunity for investment in hotels, transport and all the other infrastructure that will subsequently raise the islands’ profile as a business events destination.
Honiara, the capital city of Solomon Islands, was named in May 2016 as the host city of the Games. It will bring in athletes, spectators and media personnel from 22 South Pacific nations and was hailed as “the biggest ever windfall” for the nation’s tourism aspirations by Josefa Tuamoto, CEO of the Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau (SIVB).
“We are hopeful that this major event will act as a catalyst beyond the sporting and business opportunity, especially for new hotel development and related tourism infrastructure projects in and around Honiara,” Tuamoto said.
It is anticipated that the new accommodation will include well-known international hotel brands.
“We look at the construction of extra room inventory from a two-fold perspective,” Tuamoto said. “Given these new properties will be up and running long before the Games actually take place, it will be providing much-needed inventory for our capital city in the process. We also see these extra rooms as a catalyst for the development of our fledgling MICE industry.”
Garedd Porowai, senior travel consultant for Honiara-based Charis Travel Services, said the Solomons already receive a number of high-profile events each year.
“We have the headquarters of the Forum Fisheries Agency, which hosts five or six annual regional meetings and sees anything up to a couple of hundred participants at the larger conferences,” he told TTmice.
“We have other organisations that pull in a lot of MICE travel, such as churches, NGOs, conservation entities and various governmental projects, but 2023 and the Pacific Games will definitely be a big year for us,” he added.
Until relatively recently, facilities for business events in Honiara were largely limited to the Kitano Mendana Hotel, which has conference facilities for up to 150 people, a comprehensive business centre and restaurants. The hotel can also arrange transportation and tours for incentive groups. A newer addition is the Heritage Park Hotel, which has meeting and banqueting facilities.
The islands’ top accommodation is provided by the Coral Sea Resort & Casino, which recently opened its top-of-the-range beachside bungalows in January. A further 30 suites are on course to be completed by August, while finishing touches are also being added to the pool, the spa, the Boardwalk Bar & Restaurant, a private beach, a jetty –where drinks and meals are served – and a marina.
Moreover, the property has recently reached an agreement with an Australian hotel and brewery and will be offering incentive programmes through off-licenses across Queensland in the future, said Anthony Fargas, director of the Coral Sea Resort & Casino.
“This will give us good exposure in Australia and will bring us our first incentive tourism guests,” he said. “I anticipate that once we start mass marketing, and through strategic alliances with Australian-based travel agencies, the numbers will sharply increase for us in 2H2017.”
The Coral Sea Resort & Casino is seen as a keystone in the nation’s plans to develop its business events sector and the casino building attached to the main property has been designed so that a second storey can be added, Fargas said. It will be a convention and functions facility for as many as 500 people.
According to the SIVB’s Tuamoto, the government predicts that the business events sector will play a major role in the tourism industry over the next five years.
“While our MICE activity is still relatively small, and currently we mainly see incentive and small conference groups, the sector will play a major role in the Solomon Islands, benefitting from the generation of foreign exchange, employment and foreign investment,” he said.
“We know we have a big job ahead of us and we have a long way to catch up to other destinations,” Tuamoto stressed. “But we also know the many unique benefits the Solomon Islands can accrue from this source of tourism.
“The beauty of the Solomon Islands is that while Honiara is ideal for larger meetings groups, our other islands lend themselves perfectly to pre- and post-meeting opportunities with which participants can avail themselves of some amazing activities.”
