Mauritius expects to reach its pre-pandemic tourist arrival numbers this year, Arvind Bundhun, Director of Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority tells India Outbound in an interview. Bundhun says that with improving connectivity, he expects India also to cross the 2019 levels. He adds that as there is a good visibility about Mauritius in the metro cities, MTPA will focus on developing Tier II and Tier III markets in the country.

How was 2023 for Mauritius tourism?

We had set ourselves an objective of welcoming 1.3 million tourists. We were almost there, 5,000 tourists short. But as we speak this year, we have an objective to reach pre-Covid levels, that means to welcome 1.4 million tourists. Regarding the Indian market, actually there has definitely been a good increase over 2022 but we are still not at the pre-Covid level, but this year, with the increasing connectivity by Air Mauritius and Vistara which started operations, we hope that India will compensate and give us this incremental so that we can reach this objective.

Which are your top source markets?

You see tourism in Mauritius is still very Euro-centric. France is number one, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany, South Africa. So these are the four markets that are our main markets. But actually, I think we should go back to Covid-19. What the pandemic told us was to diversify. This is one of the reasons that we are very much present in India whereby we believe in the potential and secondly there is connectivity. So we have all the ingredients so that we manage to secure this one luck which we are aiming this year.

Which are your focus cities in India?

What we have gathered from the trade is that Mauritius doesn’t have any problem of visibility in metro cities. The objective this year is to go to Tier II and Tier III cities. So we working around the Tier II cities and Mumbai, Delhi and the south of course.

What is new for Indian visitors to Mauritius?

One great news is that by 2025 we have an additional 2,400 rooms on the market. There are a lot of developments inside Mauritius happening. A lot of eco-lodges, very green and very sustainable measures that how we need them entered on the destination.

I would just like to highlight that the road to sustainability started long time back. And as you say the private sector or hotels have been doing a lot, so has been the State. We have just got one part of the island, which has been certified as sustainable village which is in the south. And right now, we are working on a lot of measures so that we get the whole island certified by 2030.

Which are the new hotels coming up?

We have got a few openings. We have got Riu which is opening in May and we have a lot of refurbishments, which are ongoing this year and next year.

Are you launching new campaigns?

Last year we launched a campaign called Feel our island’s energy, which was quite a brilliant little campaign, winning an award in France. We had put all our immersive experiences and also our people at the forefront of this company. So, there would be a new campaign during the course of this year definitely. We really have to capitalise on the B2B because we found out that they are the ones selling 60 pc of the holidays in Mauritius. And also as most of the market is digitally savvy we have a huge social media campaign coming up.