Tourists to bring in Rs40bn

Tourism receipts which plummeted last year following the impact of the global economic crisis on the country’s traditional markets, will reach more positive ground this year.

The operators in this key sector of the Mauritian economy will see their figures recover to pre-crisis levels with an estimated 12.5% improvement in tourism receipts for 2010.

Total receipts are forecast at Rs40.1 billion this year compared to Rs35.7 billion for 2009. The revenues will thus be closer to the Rs41.2 billion recorded in 2008.

In 2009, tourism operators saw their income contract by 13.4%, the first drop for several years. Hotels managed to keep room occupancy rates within acceptable levels with their aggressive marketing policies.

Room occupancy rates for all hotels averaged 61% in 2009 compared to 68% in 2008 while, the bed occupancy rate fell from 61% in 2008 to 54% last year.

The island has 46 large beach hotels with over 80 rooms each, that is 45% of all registered hotels across the country. The aggregate room capacity for these hotels were 8,647 with a total of 17,586 beds, representing 76% of total room capacity and bed places available in Mauritius.

The figures reveal that large hotels had more trouble filling their available rooms than did the smaller ones, with their room occupancy rate plummeting from 70% to 62% from 2008 to 2009, while bed occupancy rate averaged 55% in 2009 compared to 62% the previous year.

Tourism arrivals for the current year will be higher by 5% compared to 2009 as authorities forecast that some 915,000 tourists will visit the island as compared to 871,356 last year. The current forecast is higher than the initial forecast of 900,000 visitors.

Hotel operators have started recruitment this year after the wave of lay-offs last year when employees were put on technical unemployment through the worktrain scheme implemented by the government.

Nevertheless, direct employment in hotels, restaurants and travel and tourism establishments decreased by 6.4%, according to statistics from the CSO. There was an estimated 26,922 people working for establishments employing more than 10 people in the tourism sector as at March 2009 compared to 28,753 for the same month in 2008.

Most of those employees (20,531) worked in hotels, representing 76% of the total workforce engaged in tourism-related activities.

In all, there were 102 registered hotels in operation. Seven among these had to close for renovation work as the hoteliers preferred to engage in such investment during the downturn. The total room capacity for the 102 hotels was 11,456 and total bedplaces available was 23,235.

The bad performance of the tourism sector was largely impacted by a 4.7% contraction in arrivals from the European market which accounts for 66.5% of total tourist arrivals in Mauritius.

However, the concerted actions of operators and the promotion agencies such as the MTPA had a positive impact on the French market. This segment, which provides 31.6% of all visitors to the island, managed to stay in positive territory with 6% growth in arrivals.

French tourists numbered 275,599 in 2009. The second biggest tourism market for Mauritius is Africa with a 23.4% share of total arrivals. That market contracted by 4.5% last year to reach 204,308 visitors.

Asia, which remains a largely untapped market, saw a 14.6% contraction in arrivals, reaching 62,131 last year. Tourist arrivals represented slightly over 7% of total visitor numbers to the island.

By Mahesh Bugnath