Fiji's gross earnings from tourism for Quarter 1, 2009 is provisionally estimated at $167.6million.

This is according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Statistics which states that this is a decrease of $25.4 million from Quarter 1 last year.

The Bureau said the decrease is largely due to the 242,922 or 18.7 percent decrease in visitor days.

Tourism's second quarter earnings from the Bureau are yet to be released.

Meanwhile, the latest figures from Tourism Fiji shows that visitor arrivals for the first seven months of 2009, was recorded at 280,530, a 15% decrease from last year.

Meanwhile, Tourism Fiji are expecting an increase to $24.5 million from $23.5 million last year for next year's budget of which $11 million would be used for branding campaigns and $13.5 million would be used for tactical marketing.

The 2010 National Budget will be announced next Friday by Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.