Page 14 - IB August 2020

InDepth InDepth

FIJI’S HOTELS PREPARE FOR A

COVID SAFE FUTURE

By Samisoni Pareti what the Ministry of Health would also need in terms of the
special medical practices.
As Fiji’s largest foreign exchange earner pre-COVID-19, the If somebody is sick what do you do, what are the processes,
tourism and hospitality sectors went into free fall when inter- how do you isolate them, who do you call, and then what is
national borders closed due to the spread of the pandemic, the process that works from there. Every possible scenario or
and the nation entered into lock down mode. question has to be responded to.
Up to 112,000 workers were out of work almost overnight, I will be working with TLTB (iTaukei Land Trust Board),
most of whom worked in Fiji’s hotels and resorts. Many of FITBA (the backpacker’s association), SOFTA, the transfer ves-
them are now surviving by drawing on their life savings at sels and companies that take tourists out to the outer islands.
Fiji’s National Provident Fund. They are not all our members out in the islands, so we want
As workers adjust to the new normal, Fantasha Lockington to be able to touch base with them and I’m hoping that TLTB
and her team at the Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association have can assist us do that, and we’re signing an MOU with them
been busy helping members to prepare for the wholesale op- very soon to promote a closer working relationship with lo-
erational and indeed, cultural changes, the industry requires. cally owned businesses that they work with.
She explains some of these changes in an interview with It’s just making sure that no one in the supply chain, and
Islands Business publisher, Samisoni Pareti: no one in the tourism business ambit is left out, that they are
Fantasha Lockington: We’ve worked with the Ministry of aware of the expectations. We can’t just have certain people
Health and the Ministry of Tourism for COVID safe guidelines doing it, and certain people being left out because if one
to be put in place. The Association is using those guidelines as thing goes wrong, we’re all in it together. No one’s going to
a baseline for what we do in the tourism industry. come and say, well they are your members or not, so sharing
Obviously the larger branding properties would defer to the information is critical.
their overseas brands or their sister hotels overseas to incor- What’s important is the safety of our staff, and our com-
porate the requirements that get rolled out throughout the munities and our guests. Our potential guests aren’t going to
hotels. But we want to make sure that our medium and small come if they don’t feel that we’ve got their interest at heart.
size operators that don’t have those linkages can also do best Having said that, we’re quite aware that it’s a whole
practice themselves. So, we’ve used the government’s COVID- cultural change for us in tourism. Fijian tourism is all about
safe guidelines and we are putting more details into it that the warmth of the people. The fact that is such a huge family
identify with the different tourism segments. market is because of our people. How will the children be
The idea is that we ensure that we provide the confidence handled when they travel here? How must you interact with
level that potential visitors would need for them to actually them in the new COVID normal? How are we going to provide
book. Fiji will need to have every single business buy into this nanny services? What are we going to do in the kid’s clubs to
COVID-safe guideline. It can’t be just tourism businesses that make it safer? What are some of the services that we are go-
need to do it. If you’re a bank and your clients are tourism ing to have to review how we offer them? So everything from
businesses, you must be implementing these things too. If check in to how you deal with a guest in the spa for instance
you’re a supplier of some sort, and you’re going to have to has to be reviewed, every single one.
drop off some supplies at a hotel you need to do this as well. On restaurants, you probably shouldn’t even be giving
That includes downloading the Fiji Care app, and already menus out when borders open. You should have black board
at the hotels if you check in now, they will be scanning you at menus so not everyone constantly keeps touching the same
the entrance of the door, they will be taking your name, they thing. You can’t be leaving utensils on the table. Hotels that
will be reminding you to download the app. Fiji Airways is can, will have their own apps when you check in so you can
making it compulsory to download the app to make sure they know what restaurants are open, book your table, restaurant,
can do contact tracing. We’re just putting together the last check the menu, order your food and you just turn up and you
part of the plan which will determine the training section of will get served.

14 Islands Business, August 2020