Fiji’s Tourism Needs Asia. Why Its CEO Picked China’s Trip.com as a Partner

Tourism Fiji is betting on Asia as its next major growth frontier, signing a two-year deal with Trip.com Group to build what it calls a stronger Asia-wide ecosystem.

China-based Trip.com operates across Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other parts of Asia, giving Fiji a platform with regional reach that no single-market play could offer.

The challenge across Asia, however, is not just price or flight time. It is familiarity. “Awareness is absolutely one of the most important challenges for Fiji today,” Paresh Pant, CEO of Tourism Fiji, told Skift.

Fiji is competing for Asian long-haul leisure demand at a time when established premium beach destinations, like the Maldives, enjoy strong visibility among Asian travelers. The Maldives has several advantages: shorter flight times from major Chinese cities, visa-free entry, and years of brand recognition in China’s luxury travel market. In 2025, the Maldives welcomed a record 2.24 million vis