International arrivals in 2021 drop by 35 percent
International arrivals into Solomon Islands for the first quarter of 2021 has decreased even further.
The report released on Thursday 2nd September 2021 by the National Statistics Office confirms, there has been a decrease of 35.2 % compared to the previous quarter (4th quarter 2020).
Government Statistician Douglas Kimi said compared to the same quarter a year ago, a decrease of 90.3% was recorded.
“Returning residents made up 81.8% of arrivals for first quarter 2021. This was followed by Visitors with 15.9% of arrivals and the remaining 2.3% were Intending residents.
“Visitor arrivals for the first quarter increases by 10.7% to 129 visitors, compared to the fourth quarter 2020 figure of 117 visitors.
“There was a decreases of 96.8% in visitor’s arrivals from first quarter 2020 to first quarter 2021.”
At the same time, arrivals by country of residence for the first quarter 2021 showed that Australians (62.0%) remain the largest group of visitors to the Solomon Islands.
“There was decrease of 5.3% to 80 in Australian visitors compared to the fourth quarter of 2020 figure 85”, Mr Kimi said.
“The next largest group of visitors were from New Zealand (15.5%), followed by Other Asia (6.2%), Papua New Guinea and Japan (4.7%), United States of America (3.9%), other country (1.6%), and Fiji and China (0.8%).”
February recorded the highest number of arrivals in the first quarter of 2021 with 53 visitors. This was followed by month of January with a total of 40 visitors and March the least with 36 visitors.
Since restrictions were imposed on International flights by Solomon Island Government towards the end of March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant decline in international arrivals recorded.
Chart 1: Arrivals by Category 1st Quarter 2021
Chart 2: Visitor Arrivals by Month. Jan 2019 – March 2021.
Chart 3: Tourist by Country of Residence. 4th Quarter 2020 – 1st Quarter 2021
-SINSO Press