"It worked well, but it's over": in New Caledonia, tourism in crisis one year after the riots
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New Caledonia recorded a 61% drop in tourists in February 2025 compared to February 2024. (Sebastien Bozon/AFP)
by Baptiste Gouret, correspondent in New Caledonia
Rocked by a global pandemic and a series of deadly shark attacks, the New Caledonian tourism sector thought it had survived the worst of the past five years. That was before an entire country went up in flames, plunging into one of the worst crises in its history, with the riots of spring 2024 sparked by a proposed reform of the local electoral body.
The island's second largest economy after the nickel industry , tourism accounted for around 5% of the archipelago's GDP before the riots. With 26,000 tourists recorded in the first quarter, 2024 looked promising for this territory, which has considerable assets, starting with
Libération
