Africa-Press – Mauritius. Mauritius is offering long-stay visas to remote workers while seeking wealthier holidaymakers to boost tourism revenue as visitor numbers are unlikely to match pre-pandemic levels for four years.
The Indian Ocean island nation offers a so-called premium visa, which allows people to work remotely from the country for a year, and wants wealthier tourists to take extended trips, said Nilen Vencadasmy, president of the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority.
“We are looking for digital nomads, who can plug in and start working from anywhere in the world,” he said in an interview.
The visa is part of a range of strategies to attract visitors after Covid-19 reduced numbers from around 1.4 million a year, the equivalent of the population, to virtually zero as the island famous for attractions such as Mont Choisy beach and Le Pouce mountain closed.
borders. Hospitality staff were made redundant and the collapse cost nearly 63 billion Mauritian rupees ($1.45 billion) to the country’s annual gross domestic product, the executive said.
About 2,000 premium visa applications have so far been approved, Vencadasmy said, adding that the island’s relatively advanced business and judicial infrastructure is an advantage.
Caribbean islands have similar programs in place and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said earlier this month that a remote working visa was being considered.
The average length of tourist stays has increased to about 15 nights from 10 before the pandemic, pushing the average income per tourist from 45,000 rupees to 84,000 rupees, Vencadasmy said.
Part of this is due to currency depreciation. “We assumed that people would travel less but for longer periods of time,” he said, “and that’s exactly what we’ve been seeing since we reopened.”
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