Africa-Press – Mauritius. The Deputy Prime Minister (DPM), Minister of Housing and Land Use Planning, Minister of Tourism, Mr Steven Obeegadoo, gave an overview of the Ministry’s major targets, challenges and accomplishments for the financial year 2021-2022 for the tourism sector, this afternoon, during a press conference at Le Labourdonnais Hotel in Port Louis.
He expressed confidence that the sector will bounce back and emerge stronger than before the pandemic through measures implemented and concerted actions of both the public and private sectors. The tourism recovery rate for the period October 2021 to July 2022, he pointed out, has increased from 41.5% to 81.6%.
He indicated that the tourism sector will be once again prosperous, adding that the goal of reaching the set target for tourist arrivals of one million for the current financial year will be attained. Speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic, DPM Obeegadoo underlined that it has significantly impacted the tourism industry and the Mauritian economy.
The closure of the country’s borders to international travel, and the halt of operations of commercial flights to and from the country, since March 2020, brought the industry to a leap of ten years back, he said.
He further observed that while tourist arrivals for the year 2018-2019, before the onset of the pandemic, reached 1,400,000, this dropped to reach a mere 7,324 tourist arrivals in the year 2020-2021.
As for the financial year July 2021 to June 2022, he indicated that tourist arrivals dropped by 60 % to around 553,000 and tourism earnings to USD 913 million compared in 2018.
According to him, one of the best earnings collected for the tourism sector in the history of Mauritius was in 2018 amounting to USD 1,786 billion. Nevertheless, he underlined that the sector has emerged as being a resilient one due to the collaborative works of the public and private sectors.
He lauded the robust vaccination campaign launched by Government to limit the COVID-19 virus and accelerate the opening of borders to normalcy. Government, he recalled, has put in place various measures including the Wage Assistance Scheme; the Self-Employed Assistance Scheme; the exemption of license fees for operators in the sector; and the reconstruction and renovation scheme rebates for hotels.
He indicated that for the period starting March 2020 to March 2022, Government has disbursed Rs 12.3 billion under the Wage Assistance Scheme and Rs 360 million under the Self-Employed Assistance Scheme while the Mauritius Investment Corporation Ltd disbursed Rs 11.8 billion.
DPM Obeegadoo pointed out that the sector is bouncing back as the average spending per tourist and the length of stay in Mauritius have increased. Despite the decrease in tourist arrivals for this financial year to 60%, the tourism earnings are slightly better at 49%, he noted.
He gave the assurance that the stakeholders of the tourism industry will leverage on marketing and air connectivity to meet the ambitious objectives of the industry.
He added that in order to support the recovery, stakeholders will consolidate existing markets such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa and Reunion Island and tap into new opportunities markets. They include Austria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Belgium.
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