Luxury hotel group New Mauritius Hotels posted a 17% rise in first-half profit on Tuesday, pointing to a turnaround in the key tourism sector. Among the country’s most-traded stocks, NMH said pretax profit for the six months to end-March rose to Rs1.06 billion ($38.69 million) helped by improved revenue at the top end of the market.
Following the results, shares in the hotel group, which owns eight hotels in Mauritius and one in the Seychelles, closed trading on Tuesday up 3.9% at Rs107. NMH said the coming low season would be tough as hotels cut rates and airlines reduce seat availability.
“In spite of these very challenging conditions, the board is confident that the first semester progression over last year will be maintained.” Earnings per share increased to Rs5.59 from Rs4.86 in the same period a year ago. Revenue increased by 8.9% to Rs4.51 billion.
NMH said it was negotiating a loan and bridging facility worth about 25 million euros to invest in its new Morocco venture, having already ploughed some 60 million euros into the project.