Late last year whilst visiting my two brothers and their families in Oz we hatched the Fiji plan.
We were dreaming of sun-soaked days spent snorkelling, playing games with the kids around the pool, reading, and enjoying sunset tropical cocktails to the sounds of Fijian dancing and drums.
Fair to say things didn’t go as planned. It started with a flight delay of over two hours, so we didn’t arrive until 1am. Then over the next five days we would go down one by one: four of us got gastro and two got tonsillitis.
By day six and seven, after torrential rain for all but one, it’s fair to say we were pretty much over it. Most especially the stink of sewage and that the pristine coral coast waters had taken on a sinister murky quality, with suspicious floaties that whilst not looking appealing for swimming in — did attract an abundance of fish life.
Now that isn’t an outright criticism of Fiji: sudden and massive downpours put pressure on any city’s infrastructure. In Dunedin after our big rains the other week we had wastewater overflow throughout South Dunedin and across our beaches.
But it’s not really what you want on holiday, and given the tropical environment prone to rains in Fiji it is clearly a huge issue for them.
Aside from the sewage and lack of sunshine, the other thing that really struck us was exorbitant pricing and the complete lack of local indigenous businesses.
I was hoping to find arts and crafts, local food stores and Fijian dining, but it simply doesn’t exist. We did take a day trip into Sigatoka to go "Village Market" shopping, which transpired to be two large air-conditioned duty-free shops selling merchandise and premium brands made overseas.
As a tourist I felt exploited by the resort and exploitative myself for enjoying Fiji’s natural assets at the expense of the environment and local people. I don’t understand how in a country where a significant portion of the economy is from tourism, where a taxi costs on average $NZ150, $NZ22 for a cocktail, or $NZ9 for a bag of chips, that 38% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Where is the money going? We simply aren’t the kind of people who can live it up in a resort comfortably while seeing complete poverty at the front gate.
So I got Googling the data and chatted to some of the staff. Local waitstaff and room-service attendants, on average earn $F6 or $NZ4.40 an hour. Most concerning is that only 5% of businesses in Fiji are owned by iTaukei (the indigenous Fijians).
Now people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones I know — in New Zealand we aren’t much better, with only 6% of businesses owned by Maori.
However, Maori make up 19% of our population, whereas iTaukei Fijians make up 62% of Fiji’s. So whilst we have a long way to go and there are some fantastic initiatives in place to help drive that, such as Heidi Renata’s Innov8HQ programmes, it seems Fiji has an enormous amount more work to do.
But I reckon on the whole most Kiwis and Aussies that go to Fiji are good people. So maybe collectively we can start to help by being more conscious travellers and consumers.
Taking personal responsibility as a tourist for your environmental and economic impact is a good place to start. For example, refill your bottles of water in the restaurant. We figured this out after day four and had already been delivered eight large bottles of water and four small bottles of water to our room.
Based on that ratio over the course of seven days, with 250 rooms, that’s on average 500 water bottles a day just at our resort that will go to landfill.
A number of the villages you travel through have fruit and vegetable stands which go straight to the farmer families and there are some craft stores that have been set up specifically to support the locals and authentic locally made products.
Do take lots of cash and use it to tip the service staff directly and discreetly; otherwise, it goes to management or, if in a village, to the chief.
Another great idea I came across was that many families take bags of clothes over and donate them to the housekeeping staff or the local villages. Children’s clothes especially are in high demand.
But I sound like a real downer; it wasn’t all bad.
Number one — as a family we had the most wonderful time catching up with each other. Fin said it was the best holiday of his whole nine-year lifetime because he spent so much time with his cousins. Some of the best moments were playing squash, having a meal together, or playing cards. They cost nothing and can be done anywhere.
Number two — the Fijians are quite possibly the most lovely people on Earth. They’re incredible with kids — at the resort and wherever we went Fin and his cousins got the royal treatment. At times much more than the kids bargained for with lots of bosomy cuddles and head pats.
Number three — it really made us appreciate what we have here at home. We live between Brighton and Taieri Mouth, an absolutely stunning part of the world.
On our doorstep we have the Taieri Millennial track, countless mountain-biking routes, easily harvested and safe-to-eat mussels, paua and tuangi (cockles) if you know where to look, plus some of the best surf breaks in New Zealand.
Sure, you need a 4mm wetsuit to get in the water, but that’s character-building.
— Sarah Ramsay is chief executive of United Machinists.
