Poor Tom. His girl was hassling him. She said that he wasn?t doing enough for their ?relationship?. He didn?t think that she was being fair but he understood the intransigence of a woman?s will. More importantly, he had come to comprehend the meaning of Shakespeare?s, ?Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned?. As he walked past the terraced houses of his native Birmingham, kicking an empty beer can against the wind, a thought occurred to him. ?Well, she?s always wanted to visit Mauritius and I?ve saved up a few thousand quid so that?s how I?ll make it up to her. I?ll surprise me love and whisk her off to her dream destination. That?ll be sure to make amends.?

You see, Tom didn?t think it would be too difficult to organize a trip to the Indian Ocean paradise. He knew it would put him back financially but he had a good honest job and seeing her face when he showed her the plane tickets would be worth all the gold in the world. ?She?ll be well impressed. Mauritius is far cry from our usual holiday spot, the Spanish Costa del Sol. It sounds so sophisticated and the melting pot of cultures will be fascinating just like on the BBC travel program.?

Nothing could prepare him for the shock he received when the travel agent in his Sunninghill neighbourhood told him how much the tickets alone would cost. It didn?t really make sense. He had been told that the island?s textile and sugar had reached near obsolescence and that the government had decided to focus on the tourist industry that had come to be known as ?the goose with the golden eggs?.

When he asked the travel agent why the price of air travel was so prohibitive compared to other attractive destinations like Thailand and the Maldives, she explained that the national carrier enjoyed a monopolistic position and the government was reluctant to open the skies to more flights and companies. When she showed him the brochures for the hotels, he was blown away by the sheer beauty of the sites. The travel agent, whose name was Mandy, also announced that there were plans to build many more hotels and the island would have 3000 more rooms over the next two years.

Now he was truly puzzled. The country was going to depend more heavily on the tourism industry over the next few years and was building more hotels for that purpose. Yet, for some reason, they didn?t really want to make it easier or more feasible for people to get there. He was starting to envisage another destination, but then he remembered how badly his girlfriend wanted to go to Mauritius. He decided to give it another shot.

He called his Mauritian friend Kamlesh. They had studied together at the University of Birmingham and now Kamlesh was working for a financial services firm in London. After a few niceties, Tom inquired about the situation in Mauritius. Blithely, Kamlesh informed him about the shaky state of the economy and about an explosion that had rocked the popular seaside resort of Grand-Baie. Not even that could deter Tom. What came next surprised Tom, even though he was far from being an economist.

?The last budget only allocated an extra Rs 20 million to the tourism industry. Moreover, even though the parastatal Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority is entrusted with the mission of promoting the destination abroad, it recently declared that the Association des restaurateurs et hôteliers de l?île Maurice, which represents the hotels of the island, to do their own promotion. It sounds like a blatant case of passing the buck to me,? Kamlesh wearily announced.

Tom then interrogated Kamlesh about how discouraging the price of plane tickets were. He recounted how the travel agents mostly offered package deals and that he had always preferred to just buy a ticket and get organized once he arrived at his destination. ?It?s a lot more interesting that way,? Tom explained.

Kamlesh?s response landed another blow to Tom?s hopes. ?Mauritius doesn?t really encourage backpackers. It prefers the richer tourist who lounges around the hotel and such. I don?t understand why though. Backpackers, though not wealthy, bring a lot of direct income to the country. When I was backpacking in Bolivia, for example, all the money I spent went straight to the pockets of the people, not some hotel group. Whenever I bought food, gifts or spent the night somewhere, I directly contributed to a family?s income.?

This was just too much for Tom. Another of Shakespeare?s lines came to mind, ?Life is the stuff that dreams are made of?. Only if you can afford it, he fumed. I hope she likes Thailand, he thought, before making his way to the chip shop.