Honiara has no vacant land for future tourism development says permanent secretary (PS) of lands, housing and survey.
Stanley Waleanisia was speaking during the 2014 Our Telekom national tourism forum held which was successfully staged at Heritage Park Hotel on Friday.
Mr Waleanisia clarified this when the forum openly discussed a possibility in asking the government to make available a land within the Honiara city boundary for future tourism development.
But in response to the discussion Mr Waleanisia who also participated in the one day forum told the participants that Honiara city has no free land for any future tourism development.
He further pointed out that in Honiara alone government didn’t have land for development especially tourism since all lands in Honiara have been occupied.
“I would like to tell all participants attending this forum that Honiara town has no land available for any tourism development in the future.
The lands PS said the only possible alternative is to build hotels and other future tourism developments on provincial lands.
“The only option is provincial lands to build hotels and other development but in Honiara there are no vacant land sites for future tourism development,” the permanent secretary told the forum.
He said that government had initial allocated White River coastal area in west side of the city as the tourism development sites but these stretch of areas have also been secured by other people and had been developed.
Last week’s forum discussed issues affecting the tourism issues, challenges, achievements and opportunities in the country.
By DENVER NEWTER
