The total number of visitor arrivals to Solomon Islands has rapidly increased since its sharp decline during the Covid-19 pandemic period from 2020, rebounding in the 2022 post-Covid 19 era until it reached 25,130 visitors in 2024.
This was reported in the Annual Visitor Arrivals Bulletin 2024 the Solomon Islands National Statistics Office, SINSO, released this week.
An increase of visitors from 7,323 in 2022 to 25,996 in 2023 was a clear recovery of visitors to the country since the measures such as the closing of the international airport was imposed by the Solomon Islands Government during the Covid-19 era.
Compared to 2023, visitor arrivals in 2024 decreased especially at the beginning of January (1st Quarter) 2024. A decrease of 3.3% of total visitors was recorded in 2024 compared to 25,996 visitors in 2023.
Returning residents consisted of more than half (51.5%) of the total arrivals in 2024. This is followed by Visitors with 48.0% and Intending Residents with less than 1% of the arrivals.
Arrivals by category show that returning residents and visitors comprise of the largest proportion of all arrivals, increasing from 97.3% in 2016 to 99.5% in 2024.
Intending residents have declined in share from 2.7% of all arrivals in 2016 to 0.5% in 2024.
In 2024, visitors from Australia were the largest group of visitors to the Solomon Islands (31.9%) recording a figure of 8,004 in 2024. This showed a decrease of 7.9% in Australian visitors compared to the 2023 figure of 8,688.
Visitors from other Asian Countries recorded the next largest group of visitors (9.2%), following from Australian visitors, trailed by Papua New Guinea (9.1%), the United States of America (8.8%), Fiji (8.5%) and China (8.5%), New Zealand (6.5%), and Other Pacific Countries (4.1%).
The most common reason for visiting Solomon Islands in 2024 was visiting for Other Reasons, with 7,475 (29.7%) of visitors reporting this purpose for visiting the country.
This was followed by Holiday and Vacation with 28.5% or 7,150 visitors, Business and Conference, with 23.8% or 5,991 visitors, Visit Friends and Relatives, with 12.9% or 3,245, and Transit and Stopover, with 5.1% or 1,287.
A total of 8,437 tourists travelled to Solomon Islands in 2024 and spent an average of 11 days by frequency of visit in the country.
The top 10 countries of residence for tourists visiting Solomon Islands in 2024 were Australian residents which recorded the highest proportion (2,652 or 31.4%) of tourists. This was followed by United State (1,372 or 16.3%), Other European Countries (705 or 8.4%), Papua New Guinea and Other Asian Countries (660 and 655, respectively or 7.8%, respectively), China (591 or 7.0%), New Zealand (337 or 4.0%), Fiji (319 or 3.8%), Vanuatu (305 or 3.6%) and United Kingdom (214 or 2.5%).
Visitor arrivals by broad age group showed that the majority of visitors were in the age range of 25 to 44 years in 2024. This accounted for 38.7% of arrivals or 9,732 visitors. This was followed by the age group 45-64 years with 9,066 (36.1%) visitors.
The youngest age group (less than 25 years) made up 9.7% or 2,444 of visitors, while the elderly age group 65 years and over recorded 2,585 visitors, representing 10.3% of visitor arrivals.
Distribution of visitors by gender showed more male visitors visiting Solomon Islands than female visitors. Male visitors recorded 16,982 visitors, which showed more than half of total visitor arrivals (67.6%) compared to females with 8,148 visitors, representing 32.4% of total visitor arrivals.
Visitors who were engaged in Professional and Technical showed the highest percentage of occupation (36.9%) in 2024. This was followed by visitors who worked as Administration and Managerial (16.4%), No Work (13.4%), Other Occupation (6.7%), Service Worker (6.6%), Production and Related Work and Student (6.4%), Sales Worker (3.1%), Clerical and Related Work (2.2%), Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (1.6%), and not stated (0.2%).
ENDS.///