South Pacific Cruise Forum Gathers Cruise Stakeholders

The South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) participated at the South Pacific Cruise Forum and Exhibition held recently in Papeete, Tahiti, which involved cruise tourism stakeholders from the region.

The two-day forum held on the 16th and 17th of October at the French Polynesian Assembly in Papeete was organized by the South Pacific Cruise Alliance (SPCA).

SPTO Chief Executive Ilisoni Vuidreketi stated: “The two-day South Pacific Cruise Forum is a good example of how the private sector is working with the National Tourism Offices to drive efforts to enhance the cruise sector and SPTO is pleased to have participated at the forum.”

“The development of the Pacific Cruise sector requires the cooperation of all cruise tourism stakeholders and the efforts by SPCA to bring stakeholder together to learn from each other is commendable and SPTO will continue to support private sector initiatives like this.”

South Pacific Cruise Alliance (SPCA), President Ollivier Amaru in a statement on the forum said,“The South Pacific Cruise Alliance is significantly strengthened with the organisation of this first forum. The utility of structuring and offering propositions for the development of the region, instead of just representing a marketing force, has been unanimously recognised by the different speakers. SPCA is more an exchange platform for the cruise line stakeholders and for the destinations, and has demonstrated its credibility and the quality of its studies.”

The forum involved a series of speakers from international cruise lines (Royal Caribbean Cruises, Holland America Group, Carnival Cruises, Ponant Yacht Cruises and Expeditions) that operate in the Pacific region as well as from Cruise New Zealand and Cruise St Lawrence (Canada). The panel discussions that followed the presentations engaged the participants on key topics surrounding, islands shore excursions and trends, infrastructures requirements, logistics and future planning and Marketing perspectives for the South Pacific Islands.

SPTO's member countries American Samoa, Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Tonga and Tahiti as well as its private sector members and partners ATS Pacific Fiji, Solomon Islands Ports Authority, Tonga Ports Authority and Cook Islands Ports Authority participated at the forum.