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Visa policy imposed by Paris, lack of infrastructure, cost of living: La Réunion Island stands in stark contrast to Mauritius, which is much more welcoming to tourists.
4 February, by
A few days after the 2024 tourism figures for Mauritius published by Statistics Mauritius, the IRT yesterday published the 2024 tourism figures for La Réunion Island. The comparison shows very different dynamics between two countries just over 200 kilometres apart. In 2024, 80% of La Réunion’s tourists came from France, with only 53% of leisure tourists visiting hotels, restaurants and holiday rentals. Revenues totalled 468.8 million euros, down 1.9%. In Mauritius, the diversity of visitors and a more open welcome policy generated 4.5 times more tourism revenue: 2 billion euros between January and November.
One of the reasons why La Réunion Island is lagging behind Mauritius is the restrictive visa policy imposed by Paris: on the one hand, only Europeans 10,000 kilometres from La Réunion can enter without a visa, and on the other, tourists from outside Europe cannot enter La Réunion by buying a visa and providing a simple address, as is the case in Mauritius.
The lack of infrastructure suited to tourists with high purchasing power is another explanation, while the cost of living on La Réunion is a deterrent for Europeans, who prefer to flock to Mauritius. More than 800,000 leisure tourists to Mauritius in 2024 were Europeans.
Yesterday, Île de La Réunion Tourisme (IRT) published figures for tourist numbers in 2024. A few days earlier, Statistics Mauritius had done the same for Mauritius, the closest country to La Réunion Island with a similar surface area and population. This provides a basis for comparison.
Most visitors come from France. Arrivals from the rest of Europe remained stable. Tourist receipts fell slightly by 1.9% to 468.8 million euros.
- Leisure tourists (267,663) accounted for 49% of external tourists.
- Affinity customers (242,021 tourists) accounted for 43% of outbound tourists.
- Business travellers (34,775 tourists) accounted for 6% of outbound tourists.
- Finally, other tourists (11,630) account for 2% of outbound tourists.
The main sources of tourists to La Réunion Island:
- Europe including France: 483,000
- France: 450,000
- Indian Ocean, i.e. Southern Africa, IOC and India: 65,000
43% of tourists stay with friends or relatives, 39% in seasonal accommodation (gîtes, private homes, AirBnb, etc.) and only 17% in a hotel. The average length of stay on the island is 18 days. These trends confirm the need to adapt the tourism offer to attract visitors with a higher economic contribution.
By comparison, Mauritius welcomed tourists from a wide range of countries. France remains the leading source country, with 339,421 visitors, followed by the UK (158,188) and La Réunion (140,618). Other countries of origin were Germany (123,825), South Africa (106,542) and India (56,788). There were also large numbers of travellers from Switzerland (35,329), Italy (29,489) and Russia (28,750), as well as tourists from Saudi Arabia (22,171), Australia (21,228), Madagascar (19,152), the United States (15,450), China (13,095) and the United Arab Emirates (12,374).
This diversity is an asset for Mauritius. It helps to limit dependence on a single source and to secure the tourism business in the face of economic or geopolitical fluctuations in certain regions. In La Réunion, 80% of tourists come from a single country (France).
In Mauritius, the economic impact of tourism is considerable. Between January and November 2024, tourism receipts reached 1.998 billion euros, an average of 182 million euros per month, which is 4.5 times more than on La Réunion Island. This windfall feeds directly into the Mauritian economy through hotels, restaurants, transport, shops and leisure activities. Tourists spend an average of 11.4 nights on the island.
While Mauritius benefits from a diversified tourist flow and a strong economic impact, the situation is different on Réunion. Our island welcomed 267,663 leisure tourists in 2024, with estimated revenue of 470 million euros, or around 40 million euros per month, including affinity tourists. This disparity can be explained in particular by the nature of the tourist flows: there are almost as many affinity tourists as leisure tourists on La Réunion. Affinity tourists come to visit their families and rarely stay in commercial accommodation or regularly visit restaurants.
In Mauritius, tourists are almost exclusively leisure tourists.
The first determining factor in this difference is the visa policy. Mauritius offers easy entry to many international travellers, allowing them to obtain a visa at the airport simply by providing a temporary address of residence.
In La Réunion Island, on the other hand, tourists from outside the European Union and other european states must obtain a visa in advance, which is far from being systematically granted to those from neighbouring countries. This is due to a prejudice in Paris that La Réunion is an El Dorado for foreigners from outside Europe, and that anyone entering on a tourist visa is a potential illegal immigrant.
This constitutes a restrictive and dissuasive administrative barrier. This policy limits the arrival of visitors from booming markets such as China, India, Russia and South Africa, all of which contribute enormously to Mauritius’s tourism boom.
It also prevents the arrival in large numbers of tourists with high purchasing power, such as those from the United Arab Emirates, China, India and Russia.
Another obstacle is the cost of living, which is higher in La Réunion Island than in Mauritius because it is calculated on the basis of the purchasing power of a minority who, for equivalent work, are overpaid in La Réunion compared with France. Europeans on limited incomes will get better value for money in Mauritius and more comfortable air travel in less crowded cabins. This explains why over 800,000 European tourists visited Mauritius last year.
Finally, the lack of suitable hotel facilities is another explanation. An Emirates Airbus A380 lands in Mauritius every day because the Emirati airline knows that our neighbours have enough luxury hotels to accommodate 500 high-paying tourists a day. This is not the case on our island.
The example of Mauritius illustrates how an open hospitality policy and targeted investment can attract a large number of tourists with high purchasing power and maximise the economic spin-offs. In the current context, it is impossible for La Réunion Island to hope to approach the results achieved by Mauritius in tourism.
M.M.
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