Resource information
In addition to some of the most
acclaimed beaches in the world, the Indian ocean islands
offer one of the planet's greatest concentrations of
biodiversity and stunning landscapes that include active
volcanoes, sculpted canyons, and verdant seaside cliffs.
Yet, despite its many attributes and accolades, the region
is not very well known within the global tourism
marketplace. This note is an analysis aimed at assessing
opportunities for tourism integration among the four Indian
ocean island nations of Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and
Seychelles. To inform this regional analysis and
recommendations, the four reviews were conducted to provide
a basis for understanding each country's tourism sector
in terms of its development and current performance,
contribution to the economy, and principal challenges. As a
basis for analysis of the prospect of regional integration,
the current state of tourism in each of the countries is
considered within a regional context and recommendations for
specific regional tourism integration initiatives are
provided as guidance for the way forward. The tourism sector
reviews were completed through a combination of desk
research and country visits that involved consultations with
a range of stakeholders from the public sector, private
sector, civil society, and donor community. Each country
review also contains a set of recommendations for addressing
the identified challenges. Included in the key issues
identified for each country's tourism sector are those
issues that have regional implications. This report is
organized as follows: section one gives introduction to the
regional integration study; section two gives regional
integration: the promises and the reality; section three
presents overview of four countries' tourism sectors;
section four presents regional tourism integration overview;
section five gives key issues for regional integration;
section six gives recommendations; section seven gives way
forward; and section eight gives conclusion.
