Tourism

Attracting more tourists and maintaining the growth as well as the consideration of a diversification of our markets. This is the main challenge of the tourism industry in 2012. The task can be very difficult because of the economic crisis which our main markets are facing. According to Arnaud Martin, the Chief Marketing Officer of Sun Resorts we must make the destination more accessible. We must look for the right strategy to overcome this challenge.

The number of tourists arriving in Mauritius is directed related to the visibility of island. The Minister of Tourism, Micheal Sik Yuen has said that if we do a survey in China, more than 95% of Chinese ignore that Mauritius even exists. To increase the visibility, the Minister said that we much put more emphasis on E-marketing. It is a mean which not be too costly also. We are thinking of making the best use of social media. This is to adapt to the changing behavior of the clients, more and more people are now buying tickets online.

There have been more Chinese and Russian tourists in Mauritius this year, this is very good for the sector this year. The last figures of tourists arrival for the period between January and November 2011 demonstrates an increase in tourists arrival from China and Russia and this is a good sign. There have been 13,871 Chinese tourists who visited Mauritius from January to November 2011.

During the same period last year, only 6,981 Chinese tourists had visited Mauritius. There is an increase of 98,7% in this market. The objective of the authority is to attract 50,000 Chinese in Mauritius in 2020. Concerning the Russian market, the increase is of 75,4%.