South-Pacific.Travel
South-Pacific.Travel (previously called the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO)) evolved from a 1980 UNDP/WTO study of the need for a regional tourism development program. A Tourism Council was formed in late 1980 by representatives of the Fiji Visitors Bureau, the Tonga Visitors Bureau and the American Samoa Visitors Bureau. The Tourism Council of the South Pacific (TCSP) was formally created from this body in 1983, before changing to the SPTO and now South-Pacific.Travel.
The July 1991 South Pacific Forum, acknowledging the importance of tourism to the economic development of the region, agreed to recognise the TCSP as a regional inter-governmental organisation with a formal reporting relationship with the Forum. In 1992 the Forum agreed to the TCSP becoming a member of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP).
South-Pacific.Travel is based in Suva is the mandated intergovernmental body for the tourism sector in the South Pacific. Currently twelve Pacific governments - Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu - are members. China also is a member. South-Pacific.Travel also represents more than one hundred regional private-sector operators.
Australia, in the past, has provided limited funding to specific activities of the Council.
Contact Details for Further Information
If you have any further questions about the Pacific regional organisations, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade may be able to help you. Please contact:
Director, Pacific Regional Section
Phone: (02) 6261 2224
Fax: (02) 6261 2661