"Meet the Pacific", to be held in five European cities from February 22 to March 6 is expected to create greater awareness in the South Pacific Islands region across Europe.

Now in its third year, the event involves a series of one day meetings to be held in Barcelona, Milan, Prague, Zurich and Manchester, organized by Rosie Holidays in Fiji and Tumara Pacific in Cook Islands supported by the South Pacific Tourism Organisation 

This creates a platform for Pacific tourism suppliers to meet with key European tour operators (buyers) who are committed or interested in selling the South Pacific as a destination to their clients.

SPTO Marketing Manager Alisi Lutu said, "Meet the Pacific is a great way for South Pacific tourism bodies and operators to meet with key industry buyers in Europe in a short period of time and maximize their resources their resources with maximum impact for their particular destinations, product and service offerings."

On February 25, SPTO will also participate in a consumer tourism event called Visit Pacific in Malmo, Sweden.

These events lead up to the South Pacific Islands participation in the ITB Berlin (Internationale Tourismus-Borse Berlin), the world’s largest consumer and travel trade show in Europe from March 8-12 along with national tourism offices and private sector (airlines, resorts, tour operators) from Fiji, Cook Islands, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon islands, Tahiti and Vanuatu.

SPTO will use the ITB platform to promote the new South Pacific Islands brand identity launched in October 2016 into the wider European market.

Visitors

Europe is the third largest tourist source market, representing about 10 percent of all visitor arrivals to the Pacific Islands region following Australia and New Zealand holding steadfast, a combined 50 percent market share.

It is important for the sustainability of Pacific tourism that we are maintaining marketing and promotional presence and engaging productive partnerships with European travel partners on selling our Pacific Island destinations. This will help encourage the needed growth of visitor traffic and yields out of these long haul markets into our Pacific island economies, said Lutu.

Tongan representatives are not attending the "Meet the Pacific" event.

However, Tonga is still represented through SPTO because we have arranged packages for the European market to visit the Kingdom of Tonga by promoting local operators so that Tonga is still marketed, said Tonga Tourism.