Industry Focus - Tourism

Mauritius: The Central Statistics Office (CSO) expected tourist arrivals this year to decline relative to 2008 by 9.7% to 840,000. The Bank of Mauritius also forecasted that tourism receipts for 2009 would be around 36 billion rupees (USD 1.2 billion), down by 12.6% from 41.2 billion rupees (USD 1.3 billion) in 2008.

Zimbabwe: The Zimbabwe Council of Tourism (ZCT) reported that 362,000 people had visited the country by August 2009, compared to 100,000 visitors in 2008. The ZCT also argued that occupancy rates for hotels have doubled to about 60% from 30% at the beginning of this year as tourists were returning to the country due to improvements in political and economic stability.