{"id":76577,"date":"2026-02-04T20:11:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T23:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shipping.einnews.com\/article\/889453512"},"modified":"2026-02-04T20:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T23:11:19","slug":"letter-outer-islands-shipping-service-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/04\/letter-outer-islands-shipping-service-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Outer islands shipping service policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Letter:
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dear Editor, Yesterday, Monday, announces in your paper government\u2019s intention to develop an outer island shipping policy to support the arrival of two ships expected to arrive here, donated by China and Japan. <\/h4>\n

This is an amazing move by government in terms of policy development for shipping services for the outer islands.<\/p>\n

First, the ship have already been procured. Which means the so-called most suitable vessels have been chosen, and even the need of two ships have been decided instead one and, who will operate them is already known.<\/p>\n

The chamber of commerce has already expressed concern about government running this service when private sector operators should have been asked to participate especially when a long held policy by government since the reforms in the mid 90\u2019s directed that where possible and feasible, commercial and semi commercial activities be given or encouraged to be undertaken by the private sector.<\/p>\n

With the choice already made for these boats to be purely for cargo services, the prospect of this service been a profitable or self-sustaining one is very remote. With the ongoing decline in population on our outer islands and with very little economic development on these islands that will generate back cargo to Rarotonga, we can only expect to see increasing subsidy from government each year to maintain this service. Added this, the normal inefficiency of government operations, we can only look forward to the outer island shipping been another big black hole for more of our tax dollars disappearing into!<\/p>\n

I have often asked in the past 2 years why we have not looked at the Tahiti experience with the Aranui service set up by the Tahiti government, which has operated a very successful shipping service to the Marquises and the Tuamotus for early 30 years. Many of our politicians have been on the Aranui and even the Aranui has visited us a few times. Today, they have upgraded the Aranui boat for the 6th<\/sup> time with the boat now carrying nearly 300 tourists on each trip plus all the cargo for these islands on a regular and precise schedule.<\/p>\n

An added benefit for this shipping service is the numerous businesses now well established on these islands serving the tourists brought to the islands by the Aranui. These include, many operators of tours, food suppliers feeding tourist and souvenirs and crafts vendors. The Aranui sailings are always fully booked months ahead. These paying tourist have kept the Aranui service low and affordable for people on these island<\/p>\n

I honestly believe as a tourist operator of nearly 50 years\u2019 experience in the Cook Islands, that we can run a similar service to our unique and exciting outer islands with two itineraries, one for the southern group, of a shorter duration and another for northern group, that can take about weeks. This indeed, is one way we can spread the benefits of our tourist industry to our outer islands and lessen the concentration on Rarotonga and Aitutaki as we continue to grow our tourist industry.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also of real concern for government, with no or little experience in operating a shipping service, should try to operate two ships. One ship, run properly should be able to serve both the northern group and southern group with regular service 8 to 10 times a year. This frequency is much higher than the current service to these islands. However, with two boats, the overheads and running cost doubles. In an operating environment with little or no profit the two boats operation makes little sense at all!<\/p>\n

With most of the major or important decision on outer islands, shipping already made by government what policy issues is government looking to the community to make input into?<\/p>\n

Temu Okotai<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… boats to be purely for cargo<\/span> services, the prospect of this … islands that will generate back cargo<\/span> to Rarotonga, we can only … each trip plus all the cargo<\/span> for these islands on a … important decision on outer islands, shipping<\/span> already made by government what …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}