Air Vanuatu’s difficulties have led potential tourists to the country to be ‘crossing it off their list as a destination’, says one hotel owner.Air Vanuatu’s difficulties have led potential tourists to the country to be ‘crossing it off their list as a destination’, says one hotel owner..” Those were the words of a taxi driver in March as he pulled away from Vanuatu’s Bauerfield international airport and headed into the heart of Port Vila, the oceanside capital of the Pacific island country.
The news of liquidation had already impacted hotel reservations as well as employees, said Stella Nomalo, the office manager of Hideaway Island Resort and Marine Sanctuary, located on the island of Efate. “We have to cut down from giving a lot of work to staff.” Tourism accounts for Should Air Vanuatu re-emerge, it would suffer “a reputation for being unreliable”, said British newlywed Rebecca Allen. In May 2023, five months pregnant and with a one-year-old in tow, she and her husband, Richard, spent five hours in the one-terminal airport waiting to return to Sydney for a secondary wedding celebration. Their initial nuptials took place to the backdrop of a Vanuatu beach. The jet would not take them home that day, nor the day after.