The Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) has expressed excitement over the recovery of its two major European source markets of Spain and Portugal.
Expressing the excitement at the ongoing FITUR in Madrid, Spain, Donald Payen, chairperson of the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority noted that Portugal and Spain, its two source markets, are now almost to the numbers that they had before covid.
“So, the recovery of Spain and Portugal is much better than the average recovery for Mauritius, which is 93. Spain and Portugal have reached 99 percent and recognized that even the 93 percent of the overall market is much better than what UNWTO just announced for the world market, which is 88 percent,” he said.
The chairperson attributed the feats to the efforts that have been made over the past two years, especially last year with the arrival of former Air Mauritius representative Mar Sanchez Villalta, who is doing tremendous work in the country.
“This is due to partnerships with the travel trade, the influencers in the market and the confidence they have in Mauritius,” he said.
According to him, the country is very hopeful that with the initiatives that the Tourism Promotion Authority has taken, there will be more figures and more development in the two markets.
“We are blessed that today Avoris and Iberia Jet announced the over 15 flights they operated to Mauritius from Madrid and that they are adding 12 flights during the June to September session between Lisbon, Barcelona and Mauritius”.
The additional flights, he noted, would give another impetus to efforts to grow the two markets.
The markets are also feeling the offerings and responding accordingly.
“The response is tremendous from these markets for the new repositioning of Mauritius, which is ‘Go Beyond the Sun Sea and Sand’.“Beyond this, Mauritius has got so much to offer as depicted by the new campaign we launched, which is ‘Feel Our Island Energy’”.
For him, the rationale for going after the two markets is because there is so much to do in Mauritius and the Spanish and Portuguese are now going out more than they used to.
Apart from the markets, the Tourism Promotion Authority is also promoting the combination between Africa and Mauritius, especially Kenya.
Of course, Donald Payen is happy with the 1.3 million tourists feat achieved last year, but he is setting another target this year.
“We have been very transparent in Mauritius. We recognise what revenues we had in 2019, we did much more in 2023.
“But we wanted to be true to ourselves and we adjusted to inflation, which is not done worldwide. Worldwide they just take what they got in 2019 and what they have in 2023 without adjusting for inflation. We went beyond this and adjusted for inflation.
“We are doing better overall in spite of a lesser number of overall earnings from tourists for 2023,” he concluded.
