The total arrivals for the second quarter of 2023 was 10,358, an increase of 24.5% compared to the previous quarter (1st quarter 2023).
The Solomon Islands National Statistics Office, SINSO, released the latest Visitor Arrivals bulletin on Friday 6th October 2023.
Compared to the same quarter a year ago, an increase of 521.4% was recorded, noting the post-Covid19 resumption in international travel in early 2023.
According to the Government Statistician Douglas Kimi, returning residents made up 50.2% of arrivals for second quarter 2023.
“This was followed by Visitors with 48.8% of arrivals and the remaining 1.0% were Intending residents.
“Visitor arrivals for the second quarter increased by 29.6% to 5,055 visitors, compared to the first quarter 2023 figure of 3,900 visitors.”
Mr Kimi said there was an increase of 1,304.2% in visitor arrivals from second quarter 2022 to second quarter 2023. Chart 1 shows that the returning and visitors category make up the largest proportion of all arrivals while intending resident categories make up the lesser share this quarter.
Chart 1: Arrivals by Category 2nd Quarter 2023
Arrivals by country of residence for the second quarter 2023 showed that Australia (40.8%) was the largest group of visitors to the Solomon Islands.
This was an increase of 44.7% arriving at 2,064 Australian visitors by end of the quarter compared to the first quarter of 2023 figure of 1,426.
The next largest group of visitors were from Fiji (9.9%) followed by United State of America (9.2%), Other Asia (8.4%), New Zealand (6.8%), Papua New Guinea (6.1%), China (5.2%), Other Pacific (3.0%), Other Europe (2.3%), Vanuatu (2.1%), and United Kingdom (1.7%).
Visitor arrivals by month showed that June recorded the highest number of arrivals in the second quarter of 2023 with 1,896 visitors.
This was followed by month of April with a total of 1,645 visitors and May the least with 1,514 visitors.
Chart 2: Visitor Arrivals by Month, 2nd Quarter April 2021 – June 2023
Second quarter 2023 recorded a total of 1,814 tourists, out of which 1,609 tourists reported having a holiday and vacation as their purpose of travel.
Tourists spent an average of 13 days spent in the country. Australia made up the highest proportion of tourists (48.7%) for the quarter.
Chart 3: Tourist (%) by Country of Residence: 1st Quarter 2023 – 2nd Quarter 2023
SINSO PRESS
