Third World Countries

Long ago, the word ‘travel’ referred to spending our leisure time at a place which was unique in its own way; usually away from the hustle and bustle of our everyday life. The word ‘travel’ comes from the medieval English word ‘travail’ which means suffering great hardship and that is a very good description of travel in its earliest days. However, over the years, with the growing number of people travelling around the world (for different purposes), the word ‘travel’ has acquired a new meaning. It no longer refers to the traditional purpose of holidaying but has emerged as one of the major industries of the world and contributes to a large extent to the economic development of the country, Mauritius being one of them.
On the international level, it is believed that tourism originated since the 12th century, but it is quite recent phenomenon in Mauritius. The history of tourism in Mauritius goes back to some 30 years ago, particularly by the late 1980s and early 1990s whereby the government had decided to reduce its dependency on the sugar and textile industries owing to a decline in the prices of sugar and the fact that the production of textiles had become economically feasible. Subsequently, the government had to look for other alternatives to boost the economy of the country, hence the decision to expand the tourist industry. Since then, the tourist industry has emerged as a full-fledged industry, becoming by the same the third pillar of our economy which brings around 20 to 25 billion rupees in terms of revenue annually.
In Mauritius, the majority of tourists come from France with 302,004 visitors in 2011, followed by visitors from other countries (144,743 visitors). Reunion Island comes third with about 113,00 visitors in 2011.
With a view to attracting more tourists to come to their country, governments are investing massively in the tourism sector, thus making it one of their top priorities. It should be noted that the improvements made across the