Sustainable tourism concept -Sustainable tourism Mauritius some insights-Tourisme durable ile Maurice - Draft version

Sustainable tourism is a key concept for any student or academic in the field of tourism. It is important to review the main definitions which have been elaborated over this buzz term to fully understand what it really stands for.  Though Wikipedia is not the most reliable source, it is good to start from there. On Wikipedia , the definition one will find is ‘Sustainable tourism is tourism attempting to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate future employment for local people. The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development brings a positive experience for local people, tourism companies and the tourists themselves. Sustainable tourism is not the same as ecotourism.’  However a more reliable source of information is that of the World Tourism Organisation which in 2004 defined tourism as follows:

Sustainable tourism should:

1.   Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.

2.   Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.

3.   Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.

(UNWTO, 2004).

There are therefore 3 main pillars in sustainable, environmental,economic and socio cultural

It is vital to emphasise here that sustainable tourism requires the active participation of all stakeholders be it the host community, the Government, the private sector, the NGOs and other not-for-profit organization. Since it is about a long term objective, anyone in the end is concerned.

Sustainable tourism in Mauritius

Generally speaking, one of the cornerstones of sustainable development is the Government’s will power to achieve same. In Mauritius, the Maurice Ile Durable initiative should be a real boost to the Sustainable Tourism concept by creating synergies among Ministries as well as with other stakeholders. One of them is AHRIM, which since long time back has been placing strong emphasis on the need to preserve the environment. The Tourism Environment Charter was an initiative put into place by AHRIM with the sponsorship of the National Environment Fund of the Ministry of  Environment, and the UNDP, aiming at translating the concept of environmental protection and sustainable tourism into concrete actions at all levels in the tourist industry with specific codes of practice. The increasing number of Golf courses and the increased frequency of droughts across the island raises an important issue of capacity building be it resource wise, man power or infrastructure.  It could be expected that all hotels on the coast be requested equipped with desalination plants to avoid excessive use of water.

It is clear that achieving sustainable tourism is a long term goal for Mauritius. On the economic side, it has to be pointed out that Mauritius seems to be on the right track. Despite the different crises which could have caused  operators to lower prices in order to entice new clients, taking the example of 2010, we note for instance that the number of arrivals has risen by 7.3%, the International tourism receipts has risen by 10.5%. Hence, either tourists have spent more per head, or their length of stay has increased.  On the economic side though, rising number of tourists, may also be leading to rising prices as demand for some products is increasing. Central to this success, are the marketing campaigns carried out by the MTPA on different markets and the creation of new airlinks with markets having a strong potential such as China and India.

The Tourism Authority is well aware of the importance of  sustainable tourism and two of its objects are clearly geared in this direction namely:

a) to optimise the social, economic and environmental benefits to Mauritius from tourism;

(b) to promote a sustainable tourism industry in Mauritius.

Culturally speaking though, there is still some work to be done. Whilst Mauritians are known to be smiling and nice persons generally speaking both French and English, there are some aspects which have been overlooked over the years. For instance the cultural differences for instance Europeans versus the Asiatic Mauritians has never been given due consideration so much so that some sacred places such as the Grand  Bassin are becoming more and more visited by tourists in an uncontrolled fashion and these tourists are usually not briefed as regards the sanctity of the place and the need to respect it, not putting on shoes and creating as little disturbance as possible. It is interesting to note that the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority has come up with a code of Ethics for the tourism sector which should help a better development of tourism.