From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 13, no. 1, April 1998

Millennium Celebration

By Pesi Fonua

'Be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing' might be a proven recipe for success, but as Tonga thinks about staging a grand celebration to welcome the new millenium, there seems to be a missing ingredient.

Tonga is definitely in the right place, as the closest country to the west of the International Dateline; and we have the right time, as the first country in the world to see the dawn of each new day; but the missing ingredient is doing the right thing.

The tourism industry predicts that visitors could swell the population of Nuku‘alofa to 70,000, or double what it is now. But with less than 700 days to go before the dawn of the year 2000 the people and the government of Tonga do not know how they are going to celebrate the event. There is no celebration program out as yet, and Tonga has fading hopes of building a new international resort type hotel to meet the demand for more hotel rooms.

Meanwhile, all of the 700 rooms which Tonga has to offer are already fully booked for New Year's Eve 1999, and the demand for hotel rooms for a week during the New Year of 1999-2000 is growing. The International Dateline Hotel alone has a waiting list of over 300 guests, queing up for rooms, while some of Tonga's best homes have also been rented out for the week at a going rate of $1,000 a night or more.

Global exposure

Beside the extra tourism, Tonga's unique position close to the dateline gives the kingdom an opportunity to capture some prime international television time on New Year's Eve 1999, which will have a huge impact and enormous value in promoting the Kingdom to future visitors. But media planners are wondering if Tonga can manage to put on a world class celebration with the quality and appeal to capture the interest of an international audience.

Television people who have made reconnaissance trip to Tonga in recent months have been disappointed to find that Tonga has nothing yet planned on which they can base broadcast plans. In order to market television to billions of overseas viewers, live events need to be rigidly programmed and fine tuned to the second. Tonga's casual 'wait and see us dancing and singing, and we'll charge you' approach, might fail to exploit this once in a millennium opportunity for global television coverage.

Non event

Ideas for Tonga's millennium celebrations go back to 1995 when the kingdom's attention was captured by a grandiose proposal put forward by the National Development Corporation, a newly formed Tongan-American group. The NDC wanted to stage a millennium celebration that would include an international beauty pageant for the title of Miss Millenium, a Millenia boxing championship, with the highlights of the events to be broadcast on December 31, when a Papal Mass is broadcasted from Vatican City by the Pope, and a service will be conducted by Revd. Billy Graham from the Rose Bowl, Pasadena, USA. Concerts are planned in various cities around the world, and the NDC wanted to include Nuku‘alofa, with famous entertainers performing as the clock strikes midnight of the new millennium in each time zone. The NDC proposal was for the broadcasting of these concerts to be co-ordinated in Tonga. The scale of organising the intended press and television coverage was Olympian in size.

It is now evident that nothing of this sort will take place, because the NDC failed to win the exclusive television rights to the event. They were hoping that by offering such an extravagant millennium celebration program, the Tongan government might have given them the exclusive television rights but, instead they were made the sole agent to market a millennium celebration overseas. But, without the television rights to hook investors interests, everyone was left asking "what celebration?"

No decisions

The people who are responsible for Tonga's millennium celebration, the National Millenium Committee, have not met in months, and therefore the millennium programme that everyone has been waiting for has not been approved. According to Paul Karalus, the chairman of the sub-committee responsible for the drafting of a program, a program was presented to the fulll committee last year, but no decision had been made by the end of March 1998 because the committee had not met.

Churches

While there may not be a celebration program in the fashion that the tourist industry would like it, one thing is certain, and that is the fact that Tongans will welcome the year 2000 with humns and prayers in church. The end of the second millennium since the death of Jesus Christ and the beginning of a new millenium has a special meaning to the Christian churchs, and a program of prayers marking the count-down of every 100 days is already well established in the kingdom.

And while countries are arguing who will be the first to welcome the year 2000, members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Tonga are smiling, because they will welcome the new year when the sun sets on the last day of the year and not at midnight.

Semisi Taumoepeau, the Director of Tourism and the secretary of the National Millennium Committee, said that the fundamental problem with the committee was, "because is it a very poor committee, and we know that we can't host an Olympic style clebration. The comittee is well aware of the face that a millennium celebration offers a great opportunity for Tonga to attract foreign investment and tourists to the country. We really need a big hotel project here, but there is a dilemma because the occupancy rate has been low at around 35-40 per cent, but we want to break away from where we are at the moment, we want to grow bigger," he said.

"Our hope is that when we move into the new millennium we will be getting into something bigger. We would like to turn into a new chapter. We do not want the change over to the new millennium to be just like another New Year. We are moving onto a new century, and we would like to turn over to a new chapter in the development of the industry."

Desperate situation

The reality of the matter, though, is that it will be just another New Year. There are no new hotels in sight, and most of the existing accommodation facilities are in urgent need of repair and renovation. The situation is so desperate that one resort owner predicted that if government was not going to become involved with a financial recovery package, "when the millennium arrives most of these places will be all closed down, and it will require an enormous investment to replace them."

A survey of the problems faced by some of the hotels and island resorts in Tonga has been funded by the Tonga Development Bank and hopefully a recovery package can be offered.

Cruise ships

A solution to Tonga's foreseen chronic shortage of accommodation over the period of seven to ten days during the New Year of 1999, has also been offered, and people in the industry are planning to bring in two mini-cruise vessels to Tonga. The two ships have 40 twin cabins, restaurants, bars and entertainment areas. At $900 a day per cabin, inclusive of meals and entertainment, it sounds exciting. David Hunt, of the Royal Sunset Cruises, who is involved in this cruise ship project, said that the cruise will be for a minimum of seven days, including New Year's Eve, "and giving the guests the opportunity of being on board a ship close to actual International Dateline."

The Tonga Visitors Bureau expects five cruise ships will be in Tonga during the New Year's Eve of 1999–four in Nuku‘alofa will likely double, to 70,000 during the New Year of 1999.

Big hotels

The high hopes for a big millennium celebration, which was to be brought to reality with a big foreign investment raised to build new hotels and other supporting facilities was the core of the original NDC plan. The group of Americans and Tongans wanted to attract investment to build a new wing of the International hotel, as well as the construction of a 300 to 400 rooms five-star Resort Hotel at Fua‘amotu, to purchase the hotel in Vava‘u, and to construct pre-cut houses in Ha‘apai and ‘Eua.

After failing to get the exclusive television rights, the NDC ran into more trouble when the Chairman of the Corporation, Mr Clare Morse, was declared bankrupt in the USA. This brought their Tonga plans to a stand-still, and resulted in their sole marketing agency being cancleed by the National Millennium Committee.

Simote Po‘uliva‘ati, the General Manage of the International Hotel and the spokesman for the NDC believes that the rejection by government of their application for exclusive television rights discouraged foreign investors from investing in their project, "and it is too late now to build new hotels, but we are pushing ahead with two other programs, to import affordable houses, prefabricated houses from the USA, and the other program is to establish a new airline to bring in the tourists."

Air services

Getting visitors in and out of the country for the celebration will be another problem. To date there are no special air services planned for the New Year's Eve celebration in 1999. The four airlines which are currently serving Tonga, Royal Tongan Airlines, Air Pacific, Polynesian Airlines and Air New Zealand, are not offering any special millennium services as yet.

Jim Bradfield, the General Manager of the Royal Tongan Airlines, explains that it is relatively easy for airliners to introduce new services if there is a demand, but so far they have received only one inquiry about millennium booking from a German company.

Jim says that his main concern is trying to put together a new deal, "to secure a new fleet of aircraft for Royal Tongan." The current Royal Tongan-Air Pacific joint venture, using an Air Pacific 737 will expire early in 1999 and the current Royal Tongan leasing arrangement with the 748 aircraft will expire at the end of 1998.

Family gathering

Sosefo Ramanlal, a hotel owner and the president of the Tonga Tourist Association, and the Tonga Hotel Association, believes that Tonga should take a good look at the events that it is trying to celebrate. "It is really a New Year celebration with a difference, because it is the end of one millennium and the beginning of a new millennium, an event that we are very lucky to be alive to see.

"The most important thing for me on that day is to be with my family, and for most Tongans, and I presume the same people of other nationalities they also would like to be with their families." Sosefo believes that it would be more realistic for Tonga to concentrate on preparing a celebration for themselves, "get our popular entertainers and sports people from overseas to come, and let's have our feasting, dancing and cultural activities, and if tourists want to come they are welcome, and if overseas television companies want to telecast the events overseas then we can charge them."

Sosefo believes that most of the people visiting Tonga will be Tongans from overseas, who will be here to be with their families. "The Tonga Tourist Association is the hsot, so whatever kind of celebration we will end up having, TTA will make sure that all visitors to Tonga will have a place to stay and a good time," he assures.

Sosefo says that what Tonga should be preparing for is the flow of tourists into the country following the 1999 America's Cup and the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Sosefo believes that New Zealand and Australia will make sure that the millions of visitors who flow into their countries will stay there. "They will do everything possible to keep them there, one out of every 100 might turn up here," he said. To try and secure a steady flow of tourists from New Zealand and Australia to Tonga during the year 2000 Sosefo believes would be very difficult unless the Royal Tongan Airlines and the hotels in Tonga can offer an attractive package.

"But after the Olympics and the America's Cup, people will return home and then think back of the Pacific, that they have not really been to the Pacific. They might say 'I must go to Tonga I heard it is a good place', and that is when we will start to have a steady flow of tourists into Tonga."

Regional move

A move was initiated in 1995 by Air New Zealand for the formation of what is now called the South Pacific Millennium Consortium with the intention of attracting about one per cent of the world's tourists who will visit the South Pacific for millennium celebrations, America's Cup and they Sydney Olympic.

Tonga's Semisi Taumoepeau, the current chairman of the consortium, said that it focuses on the co-ordinating of millennium celebrations of Pacific Island countries, and the publicising and the marketing of these events overseas. A challenging task, taking into account that Togna is not alone in wanting a millennium celebration program. The consortium has the blessing of the Tourism Council of the South Pacific and has made some impact with their millennium celebration publicity campaign. Their logo is featured in their publications and they also hold competitions to encourage lcoal tourist enterprises.

The hope now for Tonga to bounch back with some plans in times to prepare the events, relies on the arrival of an event management expert from Australia in June, who will be attached to the Tonga Visitors Bureau, and the involvement of the Khashoggi Group.

But a strong message from Paul Karalus, the chairman of the Millennium Events Sub-committee and the President of the Tonga Chamber of Commerce is: "For Tonga to get out from the International Beggarhood Club, "because he says that with the first approach of waiting for someone to come and bail us out, the millennium will come and go, and we will still be waiting.