?Oh my god that?s very expensive? I will rather rent out a bungalow next time I come on holiday with my family to Mauritius?? it is in these terms that I witnessed the reaction of a French lady who was recently on a one week visit to Mauritius in a 3-star-plus hotel in the north. I was not surprised at all considering the shift in the spending behaviour of tourists coming to Mauritius.

The general tendency shows that more and more tourists allocate a tighter budget for accommodation while catering for the high cost of air fare. Claiming to be a ?destination haut de gamme? does not reflect reality when only 10% of the hotels are 5- stars hotels.

With a capacity of around 10,000 rooms, the average occupancy rate was 63% in 2003 (Jan-Dec) which implies that 37% of the rooms remained empty throughout the year 2003. Is this sound for our hotel industry? This has been achieved with a promotion budget of Rs 130 million. Has the last year attempt to concentrate on ?celebrity marketing? brought any result? By end of this year, the hotel capacity will reach around 12,000 rooms and mathematically a promotion budget of around Rs 170 million will be required without considering that destinations like the Caribbean and the Maldives have picked up very well and are actively promoting their tourism sector.

Over the last 20 years, our tourism industry has been successful in gaining notoriety through Tour Operators. Is it still the case today? Are Tour Operators reacting the same way with the constant increase in air fares and hotel rates and the more and more limited availability of seats on aircrafts covering the destination? Has our tourism industry been too dependent on Tour Operators over the years? These questions need immediate answers. Should there not be a re-thinking of the modus operandi for the tourism industry? Is it not high time that a common fund be set up for promotion from both operators of the industry and the Mauritius Transport Prommotion Authority?

The tourism industry is out of breath. Let us not wait for it to go on artificial breathing!

Kailash Hurree [email protected]