Mauritius is boosting its India appeal to ensure more visitors to the island from the booming South Asian economy.

As one of the objectives of the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) is to promote Mauritius overseas as an attractive tourist destination, the authority is conducting road shows at Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, which started on August 25.

The number of Indian tourists visiting Mauritius this year is expected to increase by approximately 5% over last year’s figures, announced the MTPA at yesterday’s roadshow, held in Chandigarh.

Vijaye Haulder, Deputy Director at MTPA, told Indian reporters that they are anticipating about 60,000 tourists from India to visit Mauritius in 2014 as against 58,000 tourists who visited last year.

The MTPA Deputy Director mentioned that 40% of the total tourist traffic from India hails from the northern parts of India while the rest of them are from Western and Southern India.

He added that India is a key market for tourism and that the MTPA is confident of achieving the 60,000-tourist target for the current year.

Vivek Anand, MTPA Country Manager, said that the tourism promotion authority is looking to make Mauritius a wedding destination for Indian visitors, as 90% of Indian tourists are leisure tourists.

He said that Mauritius is witnessing “big fat Indian weddings” as the demand for holding weddings by Indians in Mauritius is developing at an ever faster pace over the past few years.

It may be noted that Air Mauritius operates its flight from Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, and Chennai.

“We are very positive on getting responses in all four cities at the road show as Mauritian stakeholders will showcase their products in this show to Indian travellers,” Vivek Anand said.

Overall, Mauritius is focusing more and more on emerging economies from Asia as Europe recovers slowly from a painful recession.

Given the tourism thrust, the number of Asian tourists rose a whopping 25.6% to 95,347 for the January to July 2014 period compared to 75,930 for the corresponding period last year.

For the Asian market the two biggest players were China and India, contributing 38,512 and 37,686 tourists each, representing a rise of 80% and 2.9% respectively.

Source: Press Trust of India

About Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA):

The Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) is a parastatal organisation established in 1996 by the MTPA act. It is administered by a Board of Directors and operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Tourism and Leisure.

Its objectives are to promote Mauritius as a tourist destination; to provide information to tourists on facilities, infrastructure and services available to them in Mauritius; to conduct research into market trends and market opportunities and disseminate such information and other relevant statistical data on Mauritius; and to advise the Minister on all matters relating to the promotion of tourism.

Image (Sun N Sand Vacations): The Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) is conducting road shows at Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata to boost the India appeal of the island economy.

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