Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association, 30 July 2026 – Tourism businesses in Fiji have grown used to navigating a steady stream of legislative reform over the past year. We have worked through consultations on employment law, marine resource use, accommodation regulation and a handful of other policy changes that touch different corners of how we operate. Most of these reach into a specific part of the business. One piece of proposed legislation currently before Parliament is different, because it reaches into almost every interaction our industry has with the people who travel here.
The Fiji Competition and Consumer Commission Amendment Bill is not simply a technical update to existing law. It represents a meaningful shift in how consumer protection, competition regulation and enforcement powers will apply to businesses across the country, and tourism sits squarely within its reach. From how we price a room, to how we advertise a package, to how we handle a cancellation or a complaint, this Bill has something to say about nearly all of it. While we are always supportive of stronger consumer protection and hold our members accountable for this and recognise that there is genuine merit in parts of this Bill, we are approaching much of it with real caution. This is because a piece of legislation this broad has the potential to move from protecting consumers to dictating, in quite specific terms, how any business – including tourism is permitted to operate day to day. That distinction matters, and it is one we believe deserves far more attention than it has received so far.
It is worth starting with why this legislation deserves the industry’s full attention rather than a passing glance. Unlike some regulatory changes that apply narrowly to a particular category of business, this one applies broadly, regardless of size or segment. Hotels and resorts, tour operators, transport providers, restaurants, activity operators, community craft ware and experiences, online booking platforms and travel agents all fall within its scope. A boutique guesthouse in Savusavu and a large-scale international resort in Nadi will both need to think through what this Bill means for how they do business. That breadth is exactly why we cannot simply welcome this legislation without scrutiny. When a law reaches this far into the operational detail of an industry, the burden of proof should sit with demonstrating that each new power is necessary and proportionate, not with businesses having to prove they deserve to be left alone to operate.
The most immediate area of concern, and understandably the one generating the most conversation among our members, concerns accommodation pricing. The Bill specifically identifies accommodation pricing within its price inquiry powers, which means the Commission would have clearer authority to examine pricing trends, market behaviour and pricing transparency within the sector. For an industry that relies heavily on global trends and demand, seasonal pricing adjustments, dynamic rates based on brand policies and promotional offers in response to managing market demand across the year; this is not a minor detail. Pricing flexibility is not a loophole tourism businesses exploit. It is how seasonal, weather-dependent, highly competitive industries survive. We support transparency around how prices are communicated. And are far more cautious about a regulatory body gaining broad discretion to examine and question pricing decisions that are, in most cases, simply sound commercial practice responding to demand.
Advertising and promotional practices receive similar attention under the proposed changes. The Bill strengthens existing rules around misleading advertising, and it does so with specific relevance to the kinds of promotions our industry runs constantly, including package deals, special offers, discounts and online promotions. On bait advertising, where a headline price draws interest but does not reflect what is genuinely available, we have little disagreement with the intent. No responsible operator wants to build a business on advertising that misleads. Where we are more careful is in how broadly “misleading” ends up being defined and enforced in practice, because a regulation written to catch genuinely deceptive advertising can, if applied too liberally, start treating ordinary promotional language as a compliance risk.
Booking practices form another substantial part of the picture, and here I think the Bill edges further into territory that concerns us. Clearer consumer rights are proposed around deposits, booking terms, cancellation conditions, changes to existing bookings, accepted payment methods and refund processes. Some standardisation here is reasonable and even overdue in parts of the industry. But booking and cancellation terms have historically been an area where operators exercise judgment based on their own business model, margins, and relationship with guests. A one-size fits-all framework imposed from outside risks flattening those differences in ways that may not actually serve guests better, let alone Fiji as a destination, and may simply make it harder for smaller, more flexible operators to compete with larger ones who can absorb standardised terms more easily.
Closely tied to this is the question of service guarantees, including a proposed refund timeframe that businesses would need to build into their existing policies. This is where our caution becomes more pragmatic. A fixed refund timeframe set in legislation, rather than left to individual businesses to manage sensibly, does not always account for the realities of how tourism payments and cancellations actually work, particularly for smaller operators managing cash flow around seasonal income. We would rather see flexibility built into any final requirement than a rigid timeframe applied uniformly across a very diverse industry.
Addressing competition provisions in this Bill requires particular care, because this is where our reservations are strongest. Industry associations like FHTA play a long standing role in advocacy, information sharing and representing our members’ collective interests, and that role becomes considerably harder to perform confidently under a framework where agreements between competitors involving pricing or market allocation can attract significant penalties. We understand the intent behind preventing genuine collusion, and we absolutely support that intent. What concerns us is where the line sits between legitimate industry coordination, of the kind associations exist to provide, and conduct the Commission might interpret more broadly. This is not a small technicality. It goes to the heart of what an association like ours is able to do for its members without second-guessing itself at every turn.
It is important to note that competition protection is not being invented by Fiji. Globally, competition and consumer protection frameworks have long been recognised as essential to fair markets and sustainable industries. Mature jurisdictions such as the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand have developed practices that balance consumer rights with operational realities, ensuring transparency without stifling legitimate business models. These frameworks demonstrate that effective competition law can protect consumers while still allowing industries – especially tourism – to innovate, differentiate, and remain competitive. Fiji’s legislation should draw from these proven approaches, adapting them to our local context rather than imposing rigid requirements that risk undermining the very diversity and resilience that make our tourism sector strong.
At the same time, trying to get smaller, less mature industries to recognise and comply with consumer protection mechanisms under the same rules applied to larger, more complex and experienced industries is neither practical nor equitable. Uniform obligations ignore the realities of scale, capacity, and maturity, and risk penalising operators who are still building resilience and capability. Additionally, we completely reject the expected response to pushbacks that claim “if you are doing the right thing, you have nothing to fear.” That line of reasoning oversimplifies the challenges of compliance, disregards the disproportionate burden placed on smaller operators, and fails to acknowledge that unclear or overly broad rules can create risk even for businesses acting in good faith.
On penalties more broadly, the Bill proposes significant increases, and it is fair to say the Government’s intention here is to signal that compliance must be taken seriously. We do not dispute that some strengthening of enforcement may be warranted. But steep penalties attached to broad and, in places, loosely defined obligations create a difficult position for businesses trying to operate in good faith. Our members are not looking for an easy pass on genuine consumer protection. They are looking for clarity on exactly what is expected of them before the cost of getting it wrong becomes this severe.
All of this brings me to the practical question every operator should be asking themselves in the coming weeks, regardless of where they sit in the industry or as part of its broad supply chain network, and regardless of how this Bill’s final provisions land.
Are your booking terms genuinely clear to a guest reading them for the first time? Are your cancellation policies easy to understand without needing a follow-up phone call? Do your advertisements accurately reflect what a guest will actually receive? Are your promotional prices genuine rather than a starting point buried in fine print? Could your customer complaints process be improved, and do your staff on the ground actually understand what consumer rights look like in practice? These are worth asking on their own merits, quite apart from whatever this legislation ultimately requires. Good practice should not need a law to justify it.
None of this is set in stone yet; our position is not one of blanket opposition. While there is real value in parts of this Bill, particularly around genuine transparency and protecting visitors from actual deception, we are wary of a framework broad enough to start shaping how a highly seasonal, highly diverse industry is permitted to price, promote and operate, without enough regard for the practical realities operators manage every day. Our role through the remaining stages of this process will be to keep pushing for that distinction to be respected, gathering perspectives from across the industry and presenting submissions that reflect what actually works on the ground, not just what reads well in a policy paper. Consumer protection and a strong, self-determining tourism industry are not naturally opposed to one another. But they only stay that way if legislation like this is shaped with genuine input from the businesses it will govern, rather than assumptions made on their behalf. That is the balance we intend to keep pushing for.
Fantasha Lockington – CEO, FHTA (Published in the Fiji Times on 30 July 2026)
Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association
The Voice of the Industry
