MAURITIUS AWAIT OUTCOME OF ‘VOTE FOR KARL CAMPAIGN’
Following the closure of the voting for nominated participants are members of Mauritius’ tourism fraternity now waiting with bated breath how successful the pleas of MTPA chief Karl Mootoosamy were to make it into the price winning categories of the annual World Travel Awards which this year celebrate the 20th edition.
The categories where Mauritius was nominated were:
Indian Ocean’s Leading Beach Destination: Mauritius
Indian Ocean’s Leading Cruise Destination: Mauritius
Indian Ocean’s Leading Destination: Mauritius
Indian Ocean’s Leading Dive Destination: Mauritius
Indian Ocean’s Leading Honeymoon Destination: Mauritius
Indian Ocean’s Leading Tourist Board: Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority
It was the latter though which raised the temperature once again among the growing opposition to Chief Karl, who was reportedly particularly active in soliciting votes for his own organization, by some described as: ‘… a last ditch effort to save his job. Bring home the trophy for best tourist board and hang on for some more or fail and face the music. If he lays another trophy at the feet of his masters they will be pleased with him and believe his yarn’ as one regular source from Port Louis put it, who admittedly is an ardent, if not acid critic of Karl’s rule at MTPA.
Another source pointed out in a mail received over the weekend that Mauritius deserves to win some of the nominated categories for the quality of the product, but has failed to raise global attention to the attractions the island holds for visitors. ‘When the award ceremony is held in Maldives in May we shall know who won what. Competition is getting harder every year. And last year Maldives took our crown as the most visited island destination in the Indian Ocean. What we lack today is not the attractions or the fundamentals in our hospitality industry which won us so many awards in the past. What we lack today is vision. What we lack today is a creative approach to market our strengths. MTPA is stuck in a time warp and had to resort to copy and paste of things from other island. We need new people, a new pan-Mauritius spirit, new leadership with new vision, inclusiveness and not segregation. Karl no longer has that in him and that is why he is so keen to win that best tourist board award, to justify what MTPA has not done. But an award is not a substitute for a good marketing strategy’ wrote another source when discussing the subject in recent days.
The entire list of nominations from the Indian Ocean islands can be found at the World Travel Awards website via www.worldtravelawards.com/nominees/2013/indian-ocean. Some 32 overall awards are up for grabs, including best airline, best airport, leading cruise line, leading cruise port as well as destination, hotel and resort and DMC awards, among others. The main contenders for the various categories come from La Reunion, Madagascar, Mauritius, the Maldives and the Seychelles with no nominees from Mayotte or the Comoros. Watch this space for the announcement immediately after the award details are released which should be on or about 12th of May.
