Isle of Pines, Mystery Island, Noumea, Vila, Lifou and now Honiara – Australians are getting a little more choice when cruising to one of their favourite regions, the South Pacific.
This year, the Solomon Islands’ capital city will welcome eight separate cruise visits – that’s a 100 percent increase in 2015. In less than a year, the island nation went from four ship visits to welcoming around 5,884 cruisers.
Ships scheduled to visit the destination vary from expedition such as Caledonia Sky and Silver Discoverer; luxury with Seabourn Odyssey; and mass market ships Sea Princess, Dawn Princess and Pacific Eden.
Solomon Islands Visitor Bureau’s CEO, Josefa ‘Jo’ Tuamoto, attributed the growing interest in the Solomons to the ongoing efforts of the national tourist office to turn “a huge potential into an actual reality”.
Pacific Eden will be one of the ships making its debut in Honiara this year.
Also playing a major role was a recent visit to Sydney by outgoing Ministry of Culture and Tourism permanent secretary, John Wasi, and representatives from the Department of Tourism, the SIVB and the Solomon Islands Port Authority. During their time in the city they met with several cruise industry players to highlight the destination its cruise potential.
“Tourism is fast emerging as a major driver for the country’s GDP, the government had embarked on a very vigorous process to seize on the opportunity tourism presents and we see cruise as offering huge potential.”
John Wasi, Ministry of Culture and Tourism Permanent Secretary
“We were determined to turn this potential into a hard reality and that is exactly what we are seeing in 2016.”
Dawn Princess is also setting sail to the Solomons in 2016.
According to the latest CLIA statistics, the South Pacific is Australia’s favourite cruising destination, with 392,549 holidaymakers cruising to the region in 2014.
The region not only encompasses a number of cultures and historical sites, it’s also conveniently located to fit in with our desired eight- to- 14-day travel time.