By Kederang Ueda
The Republic of Palau’s tourism authorities are expanding legislation to protect historic sites and natural environments through outreach with Palau’s local communities to improve tourism policy in the rebounding industry.
Tourism makes up 40 percent of Palau’s economy and accounts for 25 percent of the workforce, according to a 2023 economic report from Palau’s government. The Palau Visitors Authority (PVA) reported, however, that Covid border lockdowns caused the visitor industry to crash in 2021 when the number of visitors decline to just 3,400 compared to 89,379 in 2019.
The visitor count rebounded to 35,052 in 2023 and a further increase is forecast for this year with 23,634 visitors in the first five months of 2024.
“(The) tourism industry in Palau is our bread and butter,” said Melson Miko, director of the Palau Bureau of Tourism. “(It) relies heavily on the environment…so right now, the Bureau of Tourism, the Palau Visitors Authority, the Governors’ Association, and Chamber of Commerce, we are currently working on a Palauan Sustainable Tourism Strategy that’s good for the next five to 10 years.”
The Palau Pledge along with other environmental regulations for tourists, such as Green Fees that fund conservation efforts, represent current protective legislation. The Responsible Tourist Policy expired in 2021, which required businesses to teach tourists about Palau’s environment, culture and history, but new efforts are being made in in the Palauan Sustainable Tourism Strategy and beyond to enhance policy framework as it is expected that climate change and out-migration may worsen while visitor numbers increase.
Another legislative effort to focus benefits and protections for locals and Palau’s environment is an evolving framework of legislation for environmental and cultural protection called the Palau Development Plan, which Miko explained is being informed by each of the 16 states in Palau. The aim is to create effective laws to meet concerns over climate change and historic site preservation, he said.
“They (tourism strategies and plans) will be the basic foundation for the national government, for the state governments — for all the tourism sector stakeholders in the private sector to move together in one path,” said Miko, adding the aim is to “have a resilient tourism sector to serve the Republic of Palau and our people.”
Kederang Ueda is a journalism and biology student at Northwestern University in Illinois.