Samoa is slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic with the country's peak tourism body predicting the sector's performance will likely exceed its "pre-COVID earnings".

The forecast was highlighted in the Samoa Tourism Authority (S.T.A.) newsletter for the months of July to September 2023 which also has an analysis of the first nine months of this year. 

The authority remains optimistic that the performance of the tourism sector for the current financial year got off to a good start. 

"Our recovery efforts into the new Financial Year (FY) 2023/24 looks promising with the performance of the (July – Sept) quarter," the newsletter noted. "Total visitor arrivals for the period under review of 48,620 represents 83.3 per cent of the 58,348 total visitor arrivals for the same quarter in 2019. 

"On the earnings side, total earnings of SAT$158.3 million for the quarter is only 6.5 per cent less than total quarterly earnings of SAT$169.3 million achieved in FY 2019/20."

In addition, the newsletter stated that the faster recovery rate achieved through earnings relative to arrival numbers is due to the higher yield per visitor with the average spend per visitor increasing by 12 per cent from SAT$2,913 to SAT$3,263. 

"For the calendar year to date (Jan – Sept), total visitor numbers of 126,216 represent 92.5% of the 136,480 visitors recorded for the same period in 2019. 

"Total earnings for the period under review of SAT$422.4m represents a 4.5% increase over the earnings for the same period in 2019 of SAT$404.6m with average spend per visitor increasing to $3,340 from $2,973.

"The performance of our year to date or the first 9 months of the year means we are well on track to reach pre-covid numbers in terms of overall arrivals and will most likely exceed pre-covid earnings in the first full calendar year of borders re-opening compared to the 2019 period."

This same data was also highlighted in the latest figures released by the Samoa Bureau of Statistics. Despite the latest data showing a decrease of 13.5 per cent for the third quarter of this year, when compared to the previous quarter from June to April this year, the figures show an increase when compared to the same quarter of 2019. 

"Total visitor number of 48,620 for the quarter under review revealed an increase of 2.4 per cent over the previous quarter and a decrease of 16.7 per cent when compared to the corresponding quarter of 2019. "

The total International Arrival Statistics documented from July to September revealed an increase of 1.1 per cent over the previous quarter (Aprl-Jun 2023) and a decrease of 13.5 per cent over the corresponding quarter of 2019 indicating that Samoa is slowly recovering from covid 19.