Mauritius Tourism Minister Michael Sik Yuen yesterday, on
the occasion of the launch of the Vanilla Island Tourism Organization (VITO),
made a breaking news announcement when answering a question from a journalist
about affordable connectivity between the islands. “Air Mauritius will with
immediate effect offer passengers who arrive on their long-haul flights from
Australia, China, and Europe, a free fare onward ticket to La Reunion. All
passengers have to pay are the applicable taxes on such a ticket, but the fare
itself is free.”
This development followed an earlier statement made by
Seychelles’ Alain St. Ange, Minister of Tourism and Culture, who had confirmed
that Air Austral would resume flights from Reunion to the Seychelles from early
next year onwards. On the question of a visa for such visitors wanting a spur
of a moment trip in to fly to Reunion to discover the often breathtaking vistas
in the center of the island, Mr. Didier Robert, President of the Regional Council
of Reunion, then added that steps had already been taken to ease the issuing of
a visa in the interest of boosting visitor numbers. It is understood that South
African citizens can now enter Reunion Island already under a substantially
relaxed visa regime, while visitors from China would next enjoy similar
privileges to be followed by a number of other nationalities.
Air Mauritius, which has undergone some significant
restructuring and cost-cutting measures, had pruned routes deemed unprofitable
and then started to focus on opening up new services, like their flight to
Beijing which the market has accepted well, offering the first direct route
between China and Mauritius.
Mauritius is, after newly-admitted Maldives, the island with
the second most arrivals from among the Vanilla Island Tourism Organization’s
members and has for long led the statistics of the Indian Ocean islands off the
African coast.
