The Tourism Promotion Authority (TPA) needs substantial funding to promote PNG as an ideal tourist destination.
CEO Jerry Agus said if PNG wants to compete with tourism heavyweights, it needs to have sufficient funding.
He said countries that attract tourists have the spending power to promote their destinations.
Agus made the comments during the China Ready workshop held recently in Port Moresby.
“Promoting a destination is not that that easy. We are competing with other bigger destinations like Australia and Malaysia, China and all other countries in Europe,” he said
“All of us are trying to compete for, in this case, the Chinese market. So we need to have the resources. We need to advertise on CNN, BBC all these Chinese channels, and it’s not that cheap.
“Some of these countries have the budget, more than K200 million or K300 million. What can we do with K2 million or K3 million? It’s peanuts.”
He said if the country was serious, major funding was needed to promote it.