Pristine beaches, golfers’ paradise, honeymooners’ hub, ideal for weddings and world-famous for luxury tourism – Mauritius, has a lot to offer. Augmenting the historical India-Mauritius ties, the cultural and religious connect that have grown strong between the two over a period of time, Mr. Arvind Bundhun, Director, Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority, shares his vision, strategy and expectations for the year 2020.
Arushi Bajaj
Concluding SATTE with a record breaking footfall at its booth, Mauritius Tourism Board, in a separate press conference, expressed its wishes to accentuate its presence in India. Since, the accessibility is like never before with a frequency of 10 flights a week, Mauritius wishes to attain a considerable footfall in the year 2020.
Elucidating his point of view further, Mr. Arvind said, “The year 2019 was a very challenging year due to the lack of accessibility and emerging markets have gone down drastically. While connectivity was a major issue, yet response from the India market was quite good. However, MICE was hit majorly.”
Commenting on increasing the footfall in Mauritius he said, “We have been trying hard to increase the numbers to Mauritius. In our endeavour to up the figures, we have also come up with the idea to give incentives to any travel agent bringing a minimum of 100 tourists to Mauritius,” adding, “Activities for the India market are earmarked in terms of promotion for 2020. We also intend to further promote Mauritius as a popular honeymoon destination. Around 80,000 tourists came from India in the last year, which is an encouraging number but we want more! Be it gastronomy, hospitality, weddings or golf – Mauritius has a lot to offer to a discerning traveller.”
Concluding his presentation he declared that Mauritius is synonymous to mini United Nations and that they are extremely hopeful for 2020. He feels that leisure segment is quite a big chunk of travel and Indian traveller is an adventurous traveller and they can savour the destination like no one. Mauritius is a completely “safe” destination for solo women travellers and the country would like to more numbers in this segment.
“Mauritius is a high end destination and we strive for excellence in the long run. We have some amazing three star and luxury hotels. We are completely palatable and expect a certain quality of tourism. We are definitely not looking at mass but classy tourism as millennials look for authenticity and we have ample of it,” he concludes.
