A new multimodal station in Port-Louis
The Victoria Urban Terminal was inaugurated on July 8 in Mauritius, on the site of the National Transport Authority building and the former Decean barracks. This multimodal station, where passengers can move from “metro express” to city and intercity buses, also has a shopping center with around fifty stores, including a Winners supermarket, a market that can accommodate several hundred street vendors and a “food court. » Nearly two billion rupees (approximately 43 million euros) were invested in its construction, as part of a public-private partnership. A set of offices and parking lots will complete the VUT by the end of the year.
Gradual increase in tourist numbers
Visitors are gradually returning to Mauritius, but the figures for tourist attendance are still much lower than those before the crisis. 375,000 tourists were counted in the 1st quarter of 2022, compared to 650,000 in 2019 for the same period. The French confirm their interest in the sister island (more than 93,000 arrivals), far ahead of the English (55 000), the South Africans (42 000) and the Germans (40 000). Only 16,500 Reunion Islanders were welcomed over the semester, a very low figure which can be explained by the late lifting of health constraints imposed on travelers between the two islands.
The MTPA wants to bring back French tourists
The Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority is preparing to recruit a public relations consultant for one year in order to encourage the French to return in greater numbers on vacation to the island. France remains the leading source market for the sister island (more than 300,000 arrivals in 2019) but it collapsed, like all the others, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. If the number of French tourists from mainland France increases (more than 93,000 in the first half of 2022, see above), it remains significantly lower than before the health crisis (141,000 in the first half of 2019). All origins combined, the Mauritian Ministry of Tourism is banking on one million tourists in 2022 and is aiming for 1,4 million in 2023, like in 2019
