PCRIC & Tonga Tourism Tackle Disaster Recovery Gaps

Nuku’alofa, Tonga: Hard on the heels of the recent National Tourism Forum held earlier in March, on their most recent mission to the nation PCRIC CEO and senior team members took the opportunity to advance dialogue on disaster risk financing options with the Ministry of Tourism CEO, Mr Viliami ‘Alamameita Takau and key tourism operators.

PCRIC was appraised of the high level of interest generated within the sector following PCRIC’s presentation at the Forum, and the desire to work collaboratively with the company to develop a workable way forward to ensure tourism operators gain access to some form of financial support to offset the hardships encountered in the wake of repeated natural disasters.

As is the case across the whole Pacific Islands region, many tourism operators have few options for insurance from traditional market sources due to unavailability or excessive cost. It is hoped that this could be overcome through an innovative and open minded approach to Tonga’s sovereign risk policies taken out with PCRIC. One possible option is to consider how a predetermined funding allocation from a policy payout received by government could be dedicated specifically to the immediate post-disaster needs of the tourism sector.

PCRIC CEO, Mr Aholotu Palu, expressed confidence that the challenge could and would be addressed ahead of the 2025/26 policy renewal period and confirmed that . PCRIC’s technical team had already commenced work on a draft proposal to submit to government and industry as soon as possible.