“There was an increase of 261.4% in visitor arrivals from fourth quarter 2020 to fourth quarter 2021.”
Douglas Kimi, Government Statistician
The National Statistics Office has released the final International Arrivals bulletin for 2021, which saw an increase of visitors to Solomon Islands in quarter four compared to the previous quarter, overshadowed by a declining trend since March 2020 as a consequence of the SOPE restrictions on travel.
Government Statistician Douglas Kimi released the report on Monday 28th March 2022.
“The total arrivals for fourth quarter of 2021 were 1,174. This is an increase of 1,331.7% compared to the previous quarter (3rd quarter 2021).
“However, compared to the same quarter a year ago, a decrease of 6.5% was recorded.”
Mr Kimi said returning residents made up 63.3% of arrivals for the fourth quarter 2021.
This was followed by Visitors with 35.9% of arrivals and the remaining less than 1.0% were Intending residents.
“Visitor arrivals for the fourth quarter increased by 4,110.0% to 421 visitors, compared to the third quarter 2021 figure of 10 visitors,” he said.
“There was an increase of 261.4% in visitor arrivals from fourth quarter 2020 to fourth quarter 2021.”
Similar to the third quarter, Australia again recorded the largest group of arrivals by country of residence for the fourth quarter, but with an increase of 3,840.0% to 197 compared to the third quarter of 2021 of 5 visitors.
The next largest group of visitors were from New Zealand (24.0%) followed by Fiji (12.1%), Papua New Guinea (8.8%), China (2.9%), Other Asia (2.6%), Japan (1.9%), Vanuatu (0.5%), and Other Europe and Other Country (0.2%) respectively.
The highest number of arrivals by month was in November with a total of 234 visitors, followed by December with 145 visitors. October recorded 42 arrivals.
-SINSO Press