Africa-Press – Mauritius. Covid-19 hit Mauritius hard economically by bringing global tourism to a halt and forcing the country to shut its borders. Its economy shrank by 18%, its first recession in four decades, forcing the government to dig deep to spend 47bn Mauritian rupees ($1bn) in wage assistance schemes and another Rs30bn (out of a total war-chest of Rs80bn set aside) in loans through its central bank to troubled large companies to prevent them from closing down and sparking massive job losses.
Now the government believes the worst is behind it, expecting the economy to rebound by 9% over the next 12 months. The IMF puts it at much more modest 6.6%.
Much of the government’s optimism comes from its expectations of restarting the country’s tourism sector, which accounts for as much as a quarter of the country’s GDP and 22% of employment.
As of 15 July, vaccinated tourists can come into the country provided they spend the first 14 days of their stay in one of 14 “resort bubbles”, where they can enjoy hotel facilities including swimming pool and beach, with no restrictions on vaccinated tourists as from October.
The reopening is timed to coincide with an end to the Rs500m ($12m) in wage assistance being paid to the sector each month by the end of September and the pace of vaccinations, with six out of 10 adults having got at least one dose.
The official target is to bring in at least 650,000 tourists over the next 12 months (well below the 1.4m arrivals in 2019) as international airlines resume flights to the island.
“I don’t think reaching 650,000 tourists is very realistic,” says Eric Ng Ping Chuen, an economist and director of consultancy firm PluriConseil.
“So far we have only had something like 3000 tourists since January and the high season of European tourism is a short window between October and December before you see another low season.
Fifty-eight percent of tourists coming to Mauritius come from Europe. A lot of the wariness about the recovery of tourism has to do with the fate of the national carrier, Air Mauritius.
