Rs10 a visit islet charge is dumped

Confronted by mounting opposition, Minister of Tourism and Leisure Nando Bodha has ditched a plan to charge a Rs10 access fee to the Eastern islets, including the highly popular Ile aux Cerfs.

Tourists were to be charged Rs50. The decision comes in the wake of a demonstration on Sunday by pleasure craft operators, tour operators and NGOs.

In the National Assembly on Tuesday, after explaining the motivation for the Rs10 fee, he finally announced that access will remain free – for Mauritians and tourists aike.

The minister said he has received many representations from the public and stakeholders to reconsider the fee. “I can reaffirm that access to the islets for all people will remain free,” Mr Bodha told the House.

A couple of weeks ago, Mr Bodha said during a press conference that Ile aux Cerfs and Ilot Mangenie were “in a mess”

There were “undesirable and illegal acts and doings of operators such as harassment and aggression of tourists by canvassers and beach hawkers, undisciplined pleasure craft operators as regards to speeding and mooring, barbecue activities carried out in unhygienic conditions, and proliferation of posters and billboards”. He said that appropriate measures had to be taken before the situation becomes “irreversible”.

In the National Assembly this week, he denounced the barbecue operators, saying they carry out their activities without compliance with basic sanitary norms.