French Polynesia To Cap Number Of Tourists Allowed

The Archipelago spanning over 2000 square kilometers recently passed a landmark bill that will certainly go down in French Polynesian history books.

Under the recently passed Fāri’ira’a Manihini, or (FM27) for short, the number of non-French tourist allowed to visit the archipelago each year is set to be capped at 280,000 beginning in 2027. The bill acknowledges that tourism has contributed massively to the local economy, but the purpose of the recently passed bill is to limit environmental destruction and diversify the economy of the region.

The stated goal of FM27 is to “transition to an inclusive and sustainable tourism model”. According to data from the world bank, roughly 300,000 people visited the archipelago in 2019. Considering the bill does not limit French citizens from visiting or moving to the archipelago, at first glance for local’s things will appear the roughly same.

The bill is more so intended to limit future urbanization, environmental damage, and overfishing rather than discourage tourism all together. The Kingdom of Bhutan is a somewhat similar but not nearly as lax example.

To visit Bhutan, you will have to pay a fee of $200 U.S dollars a day; while that may sound like a lot at first glance, the Bhutanese government allows tourists to stay for free in all of their hotel’s rooms, and visitors are also given a card that will pay for taxi’s and public transportation.

So, in conclusion, if it’s your dream to visit Bora Bora, keep in mind that starting in 2027, there will likely be a 3-12 month-long waiting list.