The Central Statistics Office (CSO) in Mauritius said Thursday that tourist arrivals would reach 915,000 in 2010, representing an
increase of 5 per cent over the figure of 871,356 in 2009, PANA reported from he r e.
In 2008, 930,456 people visited Mauritius.
In its latest bulletin, the CSO said arrivals from Europe which accounted for 66 .5 per cent of total tourist arrivals, decreased by 4.7 per cent to reach 579,50 9 in 2009 against 608,358 for 2008.
France is Mauritius’ leading market, representing 31.6 per cent of total tourist arrivals and 47.6 per cent of the European market.
This market rose by 6 per cent to attain 275,599 in 2009.
However, arrivals from other EU countries declined: United Kingdom (-5.5 per cen t), Italy (-14.6 per cent) and Germany (-16.6 per cent), Switzerland (-4.3 per c e nt), Netherlands (-8.7 per cent), Austria (-9.7 per cent), Commonwealth of Indep e ndent States (-11.1 per cent), Belgium (-13.1 per cent), Spain (-20.4 per cent) a nd Sweden (-39.1 per cent).
Africa has a share of 23.4 per cent of total tourist arrivals.
This market contracted by 4.5 per cent to 204,308 while arrivals from Reunion Is land grew by 9.1 per cent to 104,946 and those from South Africa declined by 12. 2 per cent to 74,176.
The CSO indicated that arrivals from other African countries declined as follows : Comoros (-7.5 per cent), Malagasy Republic (-23.6 per cent), Zimbabwe (-26.7 p e r cent), Seychelles (-29 per cent) and Kenya (-30.6 per cent).
During the same period, arrivals from India declined by 10.6 per cent to reach 3 9,252.
Those from other Asian countries were as follows: Singapore (-5.7 per cent), Chi na (-17.8 per cent), Japan (-22.8 per cent), Malaysia (-22.9 per cent), United A r ab Emirates (-23.6 per cent) and Hong Kong (-40.4 per cent).
Meanwhile, arrivals from Oceania went down by 44.7 per cent from 20,161 to 11,14 3 and the American market shrunk by 4.7 per cent.
There were a total of 102 hotels in operation in Mauritius at the end of Decembe r 2009 with a total room capacity of 11,456 with 23,235 bed-places.
The CSO further indicated that data from the Bank of Mauritius indicate that gro ss tourism receipts for the year 2009 stood at 1,9 billion USD.
The tourism industry employs about 27,000 people.
