FHTA, 22 August 2026 – The Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association says the confusion and backlash now erupting across Fiji’s key source markets was entirely avoidable, and was flagged to the Fijian Government in detail, months before the Tourism Services Tax was ever gazetted.
FHTA raised concerns the moment the 5 percent levy was announced, without a single round of industry consultation. The association proposed simpler, less disruptive ways to support Fiji Airways directly, rather than a blunt tax bolted onto the wider tourism supply chain.
“We tried to make this work from day one, and we were ignored at every turn,” said FHTA chief executive officer Fantasha Lockington. “We asked that pre-booked and paid holidays be exempted, the same treatment given under the old Service Turnover Tax. We asked for clarity on the sunset clause. Both requests were left out of the final Gazette, without explanation.”
FHTA also asked for a minimum of four weeks between the release of the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service’s Standard Interpretation Guidelines and the tax’s implementation date, given how much narrower the TST’s scope is compared with the STT it replaces. The guidelines were not finalized until yesterday, ten days before the tax takes effect on 1 September.
“We handed government a clear, specific warning of exactly how complicated this was going to be to administer,” Lockington said. “That warning was not heard, or it was heard and dismissed. Either way, the result is the mess our travel partners are now scrambling to clean up, with days rather than weeks to do it.”
That mess has surfaced this week across Fiji’s major source markets. The Australian Travel Industry Association has called the tax’s retrospective application to existing bookings “an absolute no-go” and accused Fiji of a fundamental misunderstanding of how the travel booking ecosystem works. Agents managing multi-resort itineraries have described a process with no consistent collection method, forcing them to re-invoice wholesalers, re-invoice clients, and reconcile bookings that were settled months ago. New Zealand agents raised the same alarm at this week’s Fiji roadshow events in Christchurch and Auckland.
“Tourism Fiji and this industry have spent years, and a great deal of money, building Fiji’s name as a credible, well-run destination in markets with no shortage of alternatives,” Lockington said. “That reputation is being damaged this week, not because of the tax itself, but because government would not listen when we told them exactly how to avoid this outcome.”
With the guidelines only finalized this week, travel agents, wholesalers and tour operators now have a little over a week to overhaul booking systems, invoicing processes and client communications before the tax takes effect.
Lockington said the tax cannot be viewed in isolation from Fiji Airways’ wider financial position. Parliament approved a further $200 million government guarantee for the airline’s borrowing on 17 August, taking Fiji’s total guaranteed exposure to Fiji Airways debt to $1.33 billion, or 9.5 percent of GDP.
“Our industry is not against Fiji investing in its own aviation sector. What we needed was consultation, time and clarity, and we asked for all three, repeatedly, well before this became a crisis,” Lockington said. “Government had every opportunity to get this right. It chose not to take it.”
Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association
The Voice of the Industry
