(Noumea) The whale-watching season has begun in New Caledonia: a usually prosperous period for the tourism sector, but reduced to nothing this year by the riots which hit the archipelago and brought an entire industry to a standstill.
“Since May 13, this is the first time I’ve gone out,” Cyrille Cottica bitterly confides as he returns to port. His catamaran can accommodate up to 18 people, but only five tourists, passing Navy personnel, have taken a seat for a day of relaxation.
The sequel promises to be bitter: the skipper, who has been living in New Caledonia for 16 years, has had to stop all his trips around New Caledonia for security reasons. In June, he limited the damage by making “two chartered flights to Vanuatu”, ferrying Caledonians who wanted to leave the territory to the neighbouring archipelago.
But for the month of July, he anticipates 80-85% losses. “We don’t see a future. We don’t know how long it will last, when it will end… In any case, the economy is on the ground.”
After nickel, tourism is the second largest industry in New Caledonia with 5,000 direct jobs, four times more with induced jobs. Last year it brought in 51 billion Pacific francs (630 million dollars), according to Julie Laronde, the director of New Caledonia Tourism (NCT).
In 2023, 126,000 tourists – French but also Australians, New Zealanders and Japanese – visited the archipelago, to which are added the 344,000 visitors brought in by cruise ships.
“We cannot do without this sector. When nickel is doing badly, tourism is a very important lever for economic diversification,” she believes.
New Caledonia is lucky. “The infrastructure has not been affected by the riots,” says the director of NCT. In Noumea, hotels are even full thanks to the 3,500 police officers and gendarmes deployed to put an end to the unrest that has been hitting the territory since May 13.
“But the day they leave, it will be empty,” warns Julie Laronde. An experience that hoteliers in the rest of New Caledonia are already familiar with.
People forget quickly
Patrick Bachelet, manager of Betikure Park Lodge, a family hotel in a lush setting 150 km north of Noumea, has recorded 120 cancellations since the start of the crisis and has no illusions about the twenty or so customers who have not yet cancelled their reservations.
“We won’t be back before the end of the year and even then, with only 40-50% of the previous clientele,” he estimates. His nine employees were encouraged to take their leave in June. In July, partial unemployment measures were taken and “for the future, we don’t know.”
“The key word is trust,” he believes. While he thinks it will return quickly for locals, foreign tourists who “choose to come to New Caledonia, we have lost them for years,” he fears.
“The problem is that New Caledonia is not necessarily well known, and we know it today through these events,” adds the manager.
The prospect does not scare Julie Laronde. In recent weeks, she has increased her contacts with her counterparts in Fiji and Bali, two regional destinations marked by coups and attacks in recent years.
Her observation is clear: “Human beings have a capacity to forget, we don’t realize it,” says the director of Nouvelle-Calédonie Tourisme – who herself has put 70% of her staff on partial unemployment.
Contact with travel agencies and foreign cruise lines has not been broken and a communication plan is ready to be deployed as soon as things return to normal. “But it must not last another three months,” warns Julie Laronde, who, like all the players in the sector, is calling for “resources to hold out.”
Problem: local government coffers are empty and the state is not rushing to help New Caledonia. “But in three months, if there is no help, the professionals will close their doors. We are resilient, but still…”, says Julie Laronde.