A Model for Sustainable Tourism in the Kingdom of Tonga
  by Sharon and Doug Spence, Directors, FIKCO
  Tok Blong Pacifik Magazine, March 2002

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"The economic benefits from tourism operations such as FIKCO spread throughout the wider community. Handicraft cooperatives, local carvers, villages which provide tourist feasts, transport operators, accommodation owners, suppliers of market garden produce, and retailers all benefit from FIKCO's activities. In addition, the benefits from these activities have direct impacts on local women and their families."

"In the morning a delegation of village women came to our camp site with a gift for me - to thank me for serving, singing, and for being Sharon's friend. It was a wedding ta'ovala - one of the fine pandanus mats that women wear as their wedding dress. I wonder if they were trying to tell me something..."

"I'm looking around to check the group of paddlers, when over the din of the trade wind I hear the distinctive holler of the Tongan cowboy: "Yeee haaaa!" 'Epeli Lavaki, with his beaming cheek-to-cheek grin displaying a row of white shiny teeth, rides the waves with which he is so familiar."

"If you get up early enough, thanks to Tonga's position just to the west of the international dateline, you can take pleasure in knowing that on that morning you will be the first person in the world to welcome the dawn of a new day."

"The secret we discover is an underwater entrance to Mariners Cave. Enough light penetrates the subterranean channel to give the illusion of swimming in a blue-tinted bottle of mineral water."