Tourist arrivals down by 9.7% in Mauritius
PANA

The Central Statistics Office in Mauritius indica ted Thursday that tourist arrivals for the first nine months of 2009 dropped by 9 .7 per cent, sliding to 608,885 compared to the 674,164 attained during the same period in 2008.

It said arrivals from Europe, which accounted for 66.3 per cent of total tourist arrivals decreased by 7 per cent to reach 403,436 against 433,690 in the corres p onding period of 2008.

France, which is the Islandâ?s leading tourism market, representing 30.5 per ce nt of total tourist arrivals and 46 per cent of the European market, rose by 2.8

per cent to reach 185,627 during the period under review.

However, arrivals from other European countries went down as follows: United Kin gdom (-6.5%), Italy (-15.2%), Germany (-19.1%), Switzerland (-7.9%), Netherlands

(-8.4%), Belgium (-13.9%), Austria (-14.3%), Spain (-21.5%) and Sweden (-31.4%).

Arrivals from Africa, with a share of 23.4 per cent of total tourist arrivals, w ent down by 9.6 per cent to 142,420; South Africa (-20.9%); Comoros (-13.9%); Ma d agascar (-26.4%); Zimbabwe (-32%); Seychelles (-34.8%) and Kenya (-36.7%).

The Asian market went down by 20.6 per cent, to reach 44,491; India (-18.9%), Ch ina (-18.8%), United Arab Emirates (-25%), Singapore (26.2%), Japan (-26.5%), Ma l aysia (-27.4%) and Hong Kong (-39.6%).

The number of hotels in operation stood at 100 with a total room capacity of 11, 102 with 22,530 bed places.

Meanwhile, data from the Bank of Mauritius indicated that gross tourism receipts for the first nine months of 2009 stood at 25,685 million rupees (US$ 856.6 mil l ion), a 16.6 per cent decrease when compared to the 30,801 million rupees (US$ 1 . 026 million) realised for the same period in 2008.

About 27,000 people were employed directly by the hotels, restaurants and travel and tourism establishments.

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