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The Tourism Authority of Kiribati (TAK) conducted a Mauri Mark Assessment and the Tourism Business Inventory Survey on Fanning Island on 14-15 November 2022.

The Mauri Mark is part of TAK’s Tourism Restart Program and involves the assessment of licensed accommodation providers. The assessment criteria for Kiribati hotels and lodges include business operations, fire safety procedures, health & safety hygiene standards, facilities including in-room facilities, environmental sustainability practices and guest support services.

Four (4) accommodation establishments on the island were assessed, Ala Belle Etoite Guesthouse, Otan Aba Guesthouse, Biritita Guesthouse and Santo Kabiriera Guesthouse. Three of the properties were found to have not met most of the Mauri Mark standards and have been advised and consulted on the needs to follow all the standards and criteria. The three properties will be assessed again next year.

The team also had the opportunity to conduct the Tourism Business Inventory Survey (TBIS) on the island. The main purpose of the survey is to collect data and information on the services and facilities provided by accommodations. The reports indicates that there are no changes in the data and information collected compared to the 2021 survey.

The Tourism Authority of Kiribati (TAK) is continuing its Visitor Satisfaction Survey (VSS) over this busy festive season period.

Launched in October 2022, the VSS program involves the dissemination of electronic customer satisfaction survey forms to international and local travellers who stay at local hotels and licensed accommodation providers.

To encourage visitor engagement, TAK visited hotels in South Tarawa to brief them on the importance of the VSS and how to capture relevant visitor details for inclusion in the survey.

The VSS provides insights into the guests’ satisfaction with their accommodation along with its facilities and services.

The surveys are anonymous, and no names are recorded. The results are then analyzed and shared with the individual hotels on a monthly basis.

The VSS program is one way TAK ensures that all hotels are meeting or exceeding their guests’ expectations and addressing customer service shortfalls reported by guests.

The Tourism Authority of Kiribati (TAK) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Carl Obst and Mr. Mark Lound as Sustainability Data Specialists to support the organisation and the Ministry of Tourism, Commerce, Industry & Cooperatives (MTCIC) develop suitable indicators to measure the Kiribati tourism industry performance.

Through this project, TAK aims to develop a more holistic understanding of tourism’s benefits and costs beyond the traditional measure of International Visitor Arrival (IVA) and tourism contribution to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. These will include the costs and benefits to of tourism to economic development, environmental preservation and social well-being across Kiribati communities.

Carl Obst is a Director at the Institute for Development of Environmental-Economic Accounting – IDEEA Group. He was the lead author and editor of the United Nation’s System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) – the international standard for government work on accounting for natural capital. Prior to this work, Carl had a long career with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, including time at the OECD. His current work involves projects on natural capital accounting and sustainability measurement within the United Nations system, with the Capitals Coalition and with various companies and governments in Australia and internationally. Carl is a leading player in closing the gap between government and corporate approaches to natural capital accounting.

Mark Lound has extensive statistical experience managing the statistical operations of Tourism Australia and the Bureau of Immigration and Population Research as well as leading teams across economic and social statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Of particular relevance to this assignment, he has of recent times worked with Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) and PARIS21 on a major assessment of tourism statistics in the Pacific and developed a Pacific Tourism Statistics Strategy (PTSS), the UNWTO assessing sustainable tourism statistics for Saudi Arabia, and assisted Kiribati with the analysis and presentation of results from their International Visitor Survey.

In the first part of 2022 he completed an assignment working with the ADB and Tourism Fiji to improve methodologies for measuring visitor expenditure in Fiji and provided expert oversight for the UNWTO Workshop on Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism for Asia and the Pacific.

This project is funded through the Asiad Development Banks’ (ADB) Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative (PSDI) and is scheduled to be completed in April 2023.

The Tourism Authority of Kiribati (TAK) applauds the Ministry of Environment, Lands & Agricultural Development (MELAD) for the successful implementation of the metal waste compacting program in Betio, South Tarawa.

Implemented through MELAD’s Environment Conservation Division (ECD) and funded by the Government of New Zealand, the program is administered by scrap metal recycling company Maucalay Metals Limited and environment project management company, Argo Environmental.

The project began on 01 November and has so far collected more than three hundreds (300) transport metal waste. Using bail type crushing machines, the wrecked vehicles are compacted and reduced to cubes ready for shipment to metal waste recycling plants overseas.

TAK acknowledges that this project will help address Tarawa’s wrecked vehicle waste management challenges and will contribute to the overall look and cleanliness of the island.

TAK also appreciates the efforts of the various Government ministries, NGO’s and communities that work collectively to help address solid waste management in Tarawa. These initiatives contribute to the enhancement of the Kiribati visitor experience.

The distant island of Tamana also known as “My small paradise” was visited by the Research and Statistics Division to carry out its annual workplan activities. These activities include the Outer Island Perception Surveys (OIPS), the Tourism Business Inventory Survey (TBIS) and island mapping.

The OIPS is a survey seeking the views and perceptions of the locals on the value of tourism to their communities and island. Some of the information collected relates to income from tourism; the perceived environmental, economic and sociocultural impacts of tourism to name a few.

The TBIS was the second survey conducted and it collects information such as staff numbers, room and bed inventory, and facilities and services offered from the accommodation providers on the island. This is part of TAK’s annual workplan to update the national accommodation database for the Gilbert, Line and Phoenix islands.

There are 2 accommodation providers on the island, namely the Tamana Island Council Guesthouse and the Kiribati Protestant Church (KPC) Guesthouse located in Bakaaka village.

The team also plotted tourism attraction sites on the island using a GPS device for mapping purposes. The completed visitor map will serve as a guide for those who wish to explore the island.

TAK was part of the Ministry of Tourism, Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives (MTCIC) team that visited Tamana to celebrate the National Coconut and Cooperative Day for the first time on the 22^nd of October.

Accompanying the Honourable Minister for Tourism, Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives, Mr Booti Nauan along with his wife Dr Tabuaka Nauan, were diplomatic representatives from the Chinese Embassy, Australian High Commission, New Zealand High Commission and the owner of OceanLink.

This was the first the time for the Research & Statistics Division to conduct its activities on the island.

The Tourism Authority of Kiribati (TAK) through its Research and Statistics Division visited Onotoa Island to conduct Tourism Outer Island Perception Survey (OIPS) and Tourism Business Inventory Surveys (TBIS). The team from TAK also plotted current and potential tourist attractions on the island and will use these GPS plots produce Onotoa island visitor maps. This is the first time TAK has such activities  on the island.

The OIPS is a survey which measures the local’s perceptions on tourism such as; tourism impacts on their communities, tourism contribution to local economy; and environmental, social and economic impacts of tourism on their island.

The TBIS survey on the other hand is part of the Research and Statistics Division’s annual workplan and this survey aims to update TAK’s national accommodation database to ensure that collected data and information are accurate.

The development of maps that clearly identity tourism attractions on the outer islands will be helpful to travellers who visit the island. This initiative is part of TAK’s activity to develop visitor maps for all islands in the Line and Gilbert group. The TAK team also visited shrines and other historical areas to ensure they are included on the map of Onotoa.