THE country is currently ranked 9^th out of fifteen South Pacific countries in terms of visitors’ arrival.

Research carried out to draw up the National Tourism Policy found that the growth of Tourism in the country is in slow pace compared to other neighbouring countries despite the government’s support towards the industry.

The research also found that total number of visitor arrivals to Solomon Islands was at 24,400 in 2013, however future prospect foresees that the number is expected to increase.

According to the research findings, majority of the visitors travelled for business purposes while very few in the number of 5000 were categorised as holiday visitors.

Responding to this findings, the Government through the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has developed the Solomon Islands National Tourism Development Strategy.

The strategy was developed specifically to drive the holiday segment of arrival in the next five years.

Recently the Ministry again launched another important mechanism, – the updated National Tourism Policy to provide guidelines and framework for growing the tourism sector towards realising the potential.

The vision of these two frameworks are to develop tourism sector to become a significant driver of economic growth for the country.