Last week Mauritius announced a July 15 reopening to international travellers who were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, restrictions remain in place for travellers from South Africa.
Having perused the restrictions, operators report that they will not be able to relaunch sales for the island yet and that Mauritius enquiries will continue to be redirected to alternative Indian Ocean islands that remain open for the South African market.
“Flights between Mauritius and South Africa will remain closed until further notice. South Africans who have been fully vaccinated will be allowed to enter Mauritius from countries on the approved list, provided they have not been in South Africa for at least 14 days prior to boarding a flight to Mauritius,” stated the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority (MTPA) in a second announcement last week.
“The island has taken a very cautious approach to dealing with the pandemic in order to protect its inhabitants. They are trying to reach herd immunity and to have all tourism workers vaccinated by September, which will allow them to reopen more fully, but the Mauritius government remains concerned about the COVID infection rates in South Africa and the slow roll-out of our vaccine programme,” said spokesperson for MTPA, Janet de Kretser. She said a full list of ‘approved countries’ for phase one of the reopening of the island in July had not yet been released.
Even when travelling to the island from an approved country, non-vaccinated travellers remain subject to a 14 day in-room quarantine, while fully vaccinated travellers remain confined to their resort for the first 14 days of a stay and may enjoy the resort’s beach and swimming pool facilities during this time. Approved guests are required to take a PCR test before travelling to the island, on arrival and on days seven and 14 of their stay.
“These restrictions mean that the island remains effectively closed to South African travellers. There are no flight options between South Africa and Mauritius and even if a South African traveller were to fly to an approved country and remain there for 14 days before flying to Mauritius they would still be confined to their room if they were not fully vaccinated and subjected to numerous PCR tests. Even vaccinated travellers are required to remain confined to their resort, which is another challenging restriction,” said ceo of Thompsons Holidays, Joanne Adolphe.
Md of World Leisure Holidays, Ramesh Jeenarain, said the status quo remained for World Leisure Holidays and that it would continue to promote alternative Indian Ocean islands until Mauritius eased its entry restrictions to be more conducive for South African travellers. “This move is a small step in the right direction towards a full reopening though,” he said.
Joanne remained hopeful that the situation would improve for vaccinated South African travellers in phase two of the island’s reopening in October but said that until flights were reinstated connecting South Africa with Mauritius, operators would be unable to reopen sales. She said the trade was actually being cut out from any bookings that were taking place, as Mauritius had specified that land arrangements needed to be made through a special website, www.mauritiusnow.com rather than through traditional travel trade channels. MTPA said the website would have a list of designated resorts, although none was yet visible as Travel News went to press.
The latest MTPA statement indicates that from October 1, for phase 2, vaccinated travellers will be allowed entry into the country without restrictions upon presentation of a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours before departure. Unvaccinated travellers will remain subject to the 14-day in-room quarantine for both phases 1 and 2 though.
Asked if the ban on South African flights would be lifted in October, Janet said that at this stage Mauritius had indicated that vaccinated South African travellers would be permitted entry to the island in October but that the situation remained very fluid.
Chief finance and admin officer for Air Mauritius South Africa, Nooriena Davids, told Travel News that she remained hopeful that Mauritius would lift the restrictions against South African travellers by October 1 in time for the island’s summer season but said this was dependent on South Africa’s ability to curb the current surge of infections.
Air Mauritius postpones watershed meeting
It was also announced last week that Air Mauritius had obtained permission from the Supreme Court to postpone its watershed meeting (for the second time) until no later than January 31, 2022. The meeting was previously postponed from December 2020 to June, 2021. Air Mauritius is currently in administration and the watershed meeting is important for the future of the airline, as this is when the creditors of the company make decisions about its future.
A statement released by the airline on the postponement said the postponement was due to the general lack of economic viability for the airline as a result of international COVID-19 travel restrictions. The airline added that the ongoing uncertainty also made it difficult to estimate the restructuring costs that needed to be included in the airline’s financial statements.
Regarding the postponement of the Air Mauritius watershed meeting, Nooriena said she did not believe that the postponement would affect the airline’s operations, which remained on track for resumption on permissible routes.
