January to June 2016– Highlights
Tourist arrivals
1. The number of tourist arrivals for the 1st Semester of 2016 increased by 9.9% to reach 586,464.
2. The performance of our main markets, which accounted for 74% of total tourist arrivals for the 1st Semester of 2016, is given in the table below:
Country |
Tourist Arrivals |
1st Semester 2015 |
1st Semester 2016 |
% change |
France |
123,307 |
131,279 |
+6.5 |
Reunion |
67,426 |
67,543 |
+0.2 |
United Kingdom |
54,148 |
57,271 |
+5.8 |
Germany |
34,136 |
46,854 |
+37.3 |
South Africa, Rep. of |
45,643 |
45,311 |
-0.7 |
India |
40,713 |
44,065 |
+8.2 |
People’s Rep. of China |
42,107 |
39,613 |
-5.9 |
Total main markets |
407,480 |
431,936 |
+6.0 |
All countries |
533,781 |
586,464 |
+9.9 |
3. Among the emerging markets, India posted an increase of 8.2% whereas People’s Rep. of China and Russian Federation witnessed decreases of 5.9% and 23.2% respectively. Moreover, it is worth noting that for the period under review, high changes were observed for Turkey and Poland with increases of 471.3% (from 349 to 1,994) and 140.3% (from 1,890 to 4,541) respectively as a result of direct flights from these countries.
5. Based on recent data on tourist arrivals and information gathered from stakeholders, the forecast of tourist arrivals for the year 2016 is revised upwards from 1,240,000 to 1,250,000. Compared to the 1,151,252 arrivals of 2015, an increase of 8.6% is expected.
Tourism earnings
6. As a result of the revised forecast of tourist arrivals and based on trends for the first semester of 2016, the Bank of Mauritius is expecting tourism earnings for the year 2016 to reach Rs 56 billion instead of Rs 55 billion forecasted earlier. This revised figure represents an increase of 11.6% over the Rs 50.2 billion for 2015.
August 2016