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South Pacific Tourism Organization to determine how sustainable the region's tourism industry really is

[photo: STPO]
American Samoa will be a part of the survey
fili@samoanews.com

American Samoa will take part in a survey by the South Pacific Tourism Organization (STPO) to determine how sustainable the region's tourism industry really is, but no time yet has been set as to when the survey, which covers tourism operators, will start.

The survey is a spearheaded by Christina Leala Gale, the manager of STPO’s newly created sustainable tourism development division.

American Samoa Visitors Bureau executive director David Vaeafe told Samoa News on Monday that the territory “will be part of this survey as we are a SPTO member.” However, Vaeafe says he hasn’t received information yet, as Gale has just started but will share such detail once it’s available.

Sustainable tourist operation is defined in three areas — economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability, according to STPO.

Often Pacific countries focused heavily on only one or two of the three areas, Gale tells Radio New Zealand International. She said collecting data on the different types of tourism developments that exist in the region would help identify the gaps.

"We could start at raising awareness, to build the awareness of our Pacific countries as well as the private sector and the whole tourism industry on what sustainable tourism development is and the benefits to them and what we need to do to improve the level of sustainability in the tourism sector,” she said.

American Samoa is a founding country-member of the current 18-member SPTO, which has provided resources in support of the territory’s tourism industry. The most recent support is a joint effort with the Visitors Bureau for the first ever-local Air Visitor Survey at the Pago Pago International Airport for travelers departing on Hawaiian Airlines, Talofa Airways and Polynesian Airlines.

The Air Visitor Survey, which among other things, would determine how much contribution tourism makes to the local economy, began Dec. 1 last year and runs through May 31 this year.

Vaeafe had told Samoa News last year that “valuable data” collected from the survey includes, “purpose of visit, where they stayed, what activities they did, how much did they spend, which will give a value of the contribution tourism makes to the economy.”

The Visitors Bureau is looking at conducting a similar survey for the hundreds of temporary visitors to the territory arriving on cruise ships, after the air survey is completed and SPTO will be asked for support.

The Fono has queried the financial benefits to the local economy from the tourism industry — especially cruise ship visitors, in the past years. Lawmakers wanted a specific dollar amount of the tourist contribution to American Samoa and an ASG official told Samoa News last month that the current air survey and later the cruise ship one should provide “solid data” on how much tourists spend in American Samoa.

Samoa News notes that DOC conducts a survey of vendors for cruise ships to find out how much the vendors earned during a cruise ship visit. DOC usually provides such data in its quarterly performance report, which is also send to the Fono, but lawmakers — during budget hearings in the last four years — have sought from the Visitors Bureau the actual amount of money contributed by tourists to the territory.

The Fono has also questioned the Visitors Bureau annual budget outlay of around $750,000, citing the director’s salary and benefits, as well as overall expenses for the bureau, as too high for a government entity that doesn’t seem to be bringing in any ‘revenues’. The ASVB budget source is totally locally funded.