Hot on the heels of its record breaking April 2010 performance, Fiji’s international tourist intake has surged again with figures released by the Fiji Bureau of Statistics this week showing the destination set a new record for May hosting more than 45,000 visitors.

The 45,087 figure eclipses the previous highest ever visitor number recorded for a month of May in Fiji’s tourism history beating the 44,112 set in May 2008.

A delighted Tourism FIJI CEO Josefa Tuamoto said the bullish May result brought the total number of international visitors for the five month period to 216,525. This represents a 22.3 per cent increase over the 177,067 figure recorded for the same period in 2009.

Mr Tuamoto said the May result had been buoyed by yet another very strong performance from the Australian market where figures recorded for the month increased to 21,203, an increase of 6375 visitors over the 14,828 recorded for the same period in 2009.

The May result brings Australian numbers for the first five months of this year to 99,633, a massive 42.8 per cent increase over the 69,787 figure recorded for the same period in 2009. May figures from other source markets also continued to improve.

US figures showed good growth as evidenced by a 24.5 per cent mark up, Japan figures were up 34 per cent, South Korea figures rose by 21.5 per cent, Canada figures increased by 14 per cent, EEC figures climbed by seven per cent and New Zealand figures continued their upward trend with a three percent increase.

“The Australian performance is playing a major role in keeping Fiji bang on track for its best ever year,” Mr Tuamoto said. “But all up we have seen some great results right across the board. This is indicative of the impact our overall marketing strategy for the destination is having plus all the hard work our regional offices are putting in. If this trend continues across our peak season (June-August), we are optimistic Fiji’s international visitor intake will surpass the 600,000 ‘best ever visitor’ target we set ourselves last year. We are certainly very on track for that target.”

Fiji’s best ever figures were achieved in 2008 when the destination recorded a total of 582, 602 international visitors for the 12 month period January - December.

On a comparative basis (January – May), the 2010 result is now less than one per cent – or 1641 visitors - behind the 218,166 figure achieved for the same period in that record breaking year.