The Solomon Islands recorded 13,994 visitor arrivals in the second quarter of 2025, marking a 21 percent increase compared with the previous quarter, according to official figures released on 29 August.
Compared with the same quarter last year, arrivals grew 11.8 percent. Returning residents comprised the largest share of entries at 51.8 percent, while visitors accounted for 47.7 percent. Less than 1 percent were intending residents. Visitor arrivals climbed to 6,681 during the quarter, a 19 percent increase from 5,612 in the first quarter of 2025. Year on year, visitor arrivals were up 3.6 percent.
Australia remained the largest source market, accounting for 31.1 percent of arrivals. A total of 2,076 Australians visited during the second quarter, up 32.2 percent from 1,570 in the previous quarter.
China was the next largest source at 13.3 percent, followed by other Asian countries (9.6 percent), the United States (8.9 percent), Fiji (7.3 percent), New Zealand (7.1 percent), Papua New Guinea (6.7 percent), other Pacific countries (4.1 percent), other European countries (3.9 percent), Vanuatu (3.2 percent), Japan and the United Kingdom (1.5 percent each), other countries (1.2 percent) and Canada (less than 1 percent).
By month, April recorded the highest number of visitors with 2,312, followed by June with 2,228. May had the fewest at 2,141.
A total of 2,337 tourists were recorded during the quarter, with 2,146 citing holiday and vacation as their purpose of travel. Tourists stayed an average of 11 days, with Australians making up 32.4 percent of the total.
The most common purpose of travel was holiday and vacation (32.1 percent), followed by business and conferences (27.3 percent), other reasons (24.5 percent), visiting friends or relatives (13.2 percent) and transit or stopover (2.9 percent).
Age distribution showed that 76.1 percent of visitors were between 25 and 64 years old. Those aged 0 to 24 years accounted for 7.1 percent, while 65 years and over comprised 11.1 percent. The remaining 5.8 percent did not state their age. Males represented 69.7 percent of total visitors, while females made up 30.3 percent.
In terms of occupation, the largest group of visitors were professionals and technical workers (32.2 percent), followed by administration and managerial (18.2 percent), production and related work (13.9 percent), not working (12.3 percent), other occupations (5.3 percent), students (5.0 percent), sales workers (4.8 percent), service workers (2.7 percent), agriculture, forestry and fisheries (2.2 percent) and clerical workers (1.4 percent). Another 1.9 percent did not state their occupation.
Male visitors outnumbered females across all occupational groups.
Air Niugini carried the highest share of passengers at 31.1 percent, followed by Qantas (29.9 percent), Solomon Airlines (28.6 percent), Fiji Airways (6.7 percent) and unscheduled flights (3.7 percent).
Statistics for Brisbane-Munda flights, which began weekly service in February 2024, will be included in the third-quarter 2025 report due to a delay in arrival card processing at Munda immigration.
