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Country Report Mauritius June 2011
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HTMLEconomic performance: The tourist market appears to have rebounded
The number of tourists visiting Mauritius grew by 22.2% in April 2011 compared with April 2010. This apparently dramatic surge came after a disappointing first three months of the year, when the year-on-year change in tourist arrivals fell from 10.9% growth in January to a 2.8% decline in March. However, the record performance in April was distorted by the effects of the collapse of tourist numbers in April 2010 following the Icelandic volcano eruption, which brought a virtual halt to international flights and led to a 6% decline in tourist arrivals. Compared with the depressed market in April 2009, this April's arrivals were still up by 14.7%, but were only 8.7% higher than the relatively normal market in April 2008. Nonetheless, this is still a strong performance, but it comes at the end of the peak season, and the absolute number of arrivals will fall in the months to come. Overall, the situation remains unclear.
| Tourist arrivals and revenue | ||||||||||
| 2009 | 2010 | 2010 | 2011 | |||||||
| Year | Year | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | 4 Qtr | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | |
| Arrivals ('000) | 871.4 | 934.8 | 250.0 | 189.2 | 207.5 | 288.2 | 101.9 | 77.4 | 83.3 | 79.2 |
| % change, year on year | -6.4 | 7.3 | 7.3 | 4.8 | 6.2 | 9.8 | 10.9 | 6.9 | -2.8 | 22.2 |
| Earnings (MRs bn) | 35.7 | 39.5 | 11.0 | 8.8 | 8.4 | 11.3 | 4.1 | 3.7 | 4.2 | n/a |
| % change, year on year | -13.4 | 10.5 | 7.4 | 10.1 | 12.4 | 12.8 | 0.5 | 10.1 | 15.8 | – |
| US$ m | 1,121.3 | 1,285.6 | 363.3 | 275.3 | 272.3 | 374.7 | 136.0 | 124.3 | 145.7 | – |
| % change, year on year | -22.9 | 14.7 | 17.6 | 14.1 | 15.6 | 11.7 | -0.2 | 14.2 | 23.3 | – |
| Sources: Ministry of Tourism, Leisure and External Communications; Bank of Mauritius. | ||||||||||
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The conflicting signals are confirmed by the latest profit results from two of Mauritius's main hotel chains. Sun Resorts saw its first-quarter profits down by 8.9% year on year, which it attributed to the slow performance of the European market. In contrast, New Mauritius Hotels saw its half-year profits up by 17%, although it warned that prospects were uncertain. Against this background, the statistics office says that it expects 980,000 tourists to visit Mauritius in 2011, an increase of 4.8%. This falls short of the 7% growth that the Mauritius Tourist Promotion Authority hoped would lift arrivals to over 1m in 2011.
The uncertainty over the prospects for Mauritius's traditional markets in Europe makes the outlook for the tourism sector uncertain. To counter the dependence on Europe, the minister of tourism, leisure and external communications, Nandcoomar Bodha, has led a delegation to China, whose overseas tourist market of 57m is expected to grow to 80m by 2015. Currently, Chinese tourist account for only 1.2% of Mauritian visitors, less than one-third of the number of Indian tourists, but Chinese numbers grew by 30.3% year on year in the first quarter of 2011. Mr Bodha announced a target of doubling the number of Chinese visitors by the end of the year.
