SHAUN Parsons is the General Manager of the new Crowne Plaza in Nadi Bay. Here, he shares his insights into the changing travel behaviour and expectations of Aussies and what Fiji needs to stay ahead.
TravelBulletin: There has been a major increase in Aussies travelling to Fiji in the past year. What do you think is behind that push?
Shaun Parsons: There are a number of things. Obviously from an international destination perspective, it’s incredibly close. It’s a three-hour flight out of Brisbane to Fiji. It’s around four hours from Sydney, so it’s really easy for Australians to get here. You can leave in the early morning and be here by mid-afternoon and it’s something that I think our airline partners have also started to identify.
There’s now increased metal coming in, with Jetstar, seeing the value expanding their connectivity to Fiji, and of course, the national carrier Fiji Airways opening up Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and, I think, very soon, to announce another Australian route in in the coming weeks.
Fiji Airways has a great opportunity for Australians to connect through Fiji up into the North American market with their new A350s. I know a lot of Australians personally who are coming through Fiji by taking advantage of the free 72 hour stopover, then carrying on to Vancouver, San Francisco or Los Angeles. I think there will be another new US destination announced in the next few weeks too.
TravelBulletin: How has that increased travel changed the booking behaviour of Aussies in Fiji?
Parsons: There used to be very clearly demarcated seasonality, whether it was a high season or low shoulder season. Coming out of Covid, I don’t know if it’s isolated Fiji to, [but] you’re seeing almost a flattening of seasons.
And what we’ve also seen is that the Australian school holidays are very different now. They used to be pretty consistent across states. Along with that, we’re seeing a flattening of the shoulders, but we’ve also seen parents more willing to take their kids out of school, to take advantage of better deals outside of what would otherwise be peak season. So that’s affecting booking patterns.
There are also a lot more short-lead bookings coming in. And that’s not just from Australia, but from China and other markets as well, where we’re seeing a lot more business filling in later. Maybe that’s because there’s more air lift and there are more deals, so there’s not the need to book as far in advance.
TravelBulletin: Continuing on that thought around the increase in tourists in Fiji, there’s been a lot of development in Fiji. What have you observed in that regard?
Parsons: Last week was a big one, because we had the Asia-Pacific Hotel Industry Conference & Exhibition (AHICE) Fiji Investment in Tourism Summit. I don’t want to speak for Tourism Fiji, but the market is ripe for further hotel developments and further opportunities. The economics are very strong in Fiji. The rates that investors can get here on finance are still very strong and that leads to some positive ROIs on developments.
To continue to grow the Fiji and hospitality ecosystem, we need more hotels. And that might sound strange coming from a hotel that has 324 keys and is relatively new. We would prefer that there isn’t more because in an environment where we’re dealing with supply and demand, if there’s more supply, then that can affect our ability to get our market share.
But I think there is enormous opportunity. We’re talking about a visitor arrival economy that’s heading towards a million people a year here in the next few years. A visitor economy that is significant from a Fijian ecosystem in terms of contribution to the GDP. There is more opportunity here and there appears to be a strong amount of interest, from what I saw of the amount of people that were here for the conference, be that investors, developers, or hotel companies trying to get deals done.
So I think you’ll see a significant or continuing evolution of this market over the next 10 years.
TravelBulletin: There are a lot of developments happening at Crowne Plaza right now too. How are they tracking?
Parsons: We’ve just opened a new wing of rooms, which adds an elevated aspect of our product to the hotel inventory. We’ve got swim-up or walk-out pool access rooms and two-bedroom family rooms with access straight into the pools. We’re going to have seven pools with 4.5 million litres of water, so we’ll have the one of the largest bodies of water under management in the market. We’re going through some trial phases and in the next few days, we’ll open our Italian restaurant.
At the end of the day, for us, it’s about being a market leader in both our room product and overall experience, but also our F&B. We’re not only opening F&B here for the hotel guests, we’re opening it to the local community. We’ve always seen ourselves as a hotel for all Fijians, not just those coming in from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, or the US.
We’re continuing to add different new strings to our bow. In the last few weeks, we’ve opened a Whiskey Bar and we’ve got a new lounge with DJ in it. We’re probably about two months away from having our new Urban Sugar Beach Club opening.
By the end of the year, we aim to have the balance of the 324 rooms, which will be more swim-up and swim-out rooms, and suites that can fit five people, which will be great for larger families. Then the big piece is our 900-seat convention centre, that will round out towards the end of the year.
TravelBulletin: From your experience in the hotel industry, what have you noticed in terms of how customers have changed?
Parsons: I think we’re in this generation of travel, where people really want experiences that they otherwise can’t have when they go to other destinations. And that’s where I think Fiji is doing a great job by focusing on adventure tourism. We’ve got the global Adventure Tourism conference here in November.
The experience piece is critical. I saw some stats the other day, and people are spending more on that than ever before.
That’s where Fiji will need to stay on the cutting edge and make sure that they’re providing customers with these little nuggets. That’s where I think we have done a bit of work as a destination. We have a lot more work to do in terms of showing people what else we have to offer because there is a lot. Biking, for example. Just down the road from us is a vendor that’s opened in the last few months called Bicycle Fiji and I saw e-bikes in the hotel this morning. These are things that you wouldn’t have seen in Fiji eight to 10 months ago.
There are more that are coming up with these concepts to give people a different experience in the market.
