The Tourism Promotion Authority is concerned Papua New Guinea is suffering from a negative image perception and is urging the media industry to build a positive narrative for the country, to improve tourism.
During the celebration of World Media Freedom Day at the University of PNG yesterday, Acting CEO for PNGTPA, Douglas Keari stressed the importance of mitigating the impact of traumatic events on the tourism sector in PNG.
“The immediate consequences of traumatic events on tourist destination are physical damage to infrastructure from natural disasters, disruption of services, accommodation facilities, loss of life and injuries.
“At TPA we understand that climate change has a lot to do with it as well and to put a mitigation plan in place is one important step to overcome these challenges. We recently launched the Prices management plan and the strategy is to identify on steps and procedures to avert these challenge,” stated Keari.
Several other consequences include the crime rates, tribal fights, health crisis, Covid-19 and etc.
“In recent times, in 2019 the tribal conflict in Hela that response alone and the news that was published circulated in the world and the conflict disrupted a lot of tourism activities. Another news was the natural disasters in 2021 in Oro Province. Oro houses one of PNG’s premier tourism product which is the Kokoda track,” he further explained.
Keari shared that in 2022, only 50 tourists visited PNG, due to COVID-19 and the country is still recovering from it. With the negative news from PNG, it is not doing any good to the tourism industry.
“Journalism you have a very important role to ensure that those messages reach our audience and our audience are well informed when they come to PNG,” Acting CEO Keari advised.
Journalism Student representative, Kristoffa Tapungu encouraged the journalism students of the University of PNG to advocate more on solutions of these issues.
“As future Journalists of this country, we have the opportunity to be the harbingers of awareness and the advocates for solutions. We can drive the conversation towards sustainability, influence policy through informed debate, and inspire our communities to act. We must be committed to ensure that voices are not just heard, but heeded,” encouraged Tapungu.