Tourism in Réunion
Tourism is an important part of the economy of Réunion, an island and French overseas departement in the Indian Ocean.
[1] Only intrepid hikers made the several-day expedition to see the active volcano Piton de la Fournaise.
[2] Creole families from the west explored the more accessible (but still wild) sites such as Bernica and the Saint-Gilles Ravine, as recorded in the poems of Leconte de Lisle.
He was Réunionese by adoption and these paintings gave an idea of the landscape and the most popular sites on the island during the second half of the 19th century.
[9] In January of that year the Observatoire du développement de La Réunion noted that the general public were still sensitive to the development of the new sector, although it created many new jobs on the island.
[10] Tourism brought 370,000 visitors to the Intense Island (as it had been named by the CTR), with a turnover of 1.7 million francs.
Initiatives answering that question began to multiply, such as the start of villa holidays in the west of the island.
[15] The emphasis was on marketing, the idea being to increase tourism, it was important to publicise Réunion and show the world a positive image.
Their success encouraged other communes who had previously been more concerned about the new sector, for example Saint-Louis and Sainte-Suzanne, which began initiatives to attract both internal and external tourists.
[21] A new airline opened, Air Bourbon, funded partly by Réunion capital, and made its first flights between the island and the mainland after a rough start.
That year, they received 430,000 external tourists and generated 6,000 jobs in the sector, providing 6.5% of the total salary for all workers.
[27] They proposed a series of measures, notably adapting the accommodation for disabled people,[28] and to ride the new wave of well-off tourists, particularly senior citizens.
[32] The crisis was global and affected the other French overseas departments too, but Réunion attributed it to a marketing failure.
In August 2005, Brigitte Bardot wrote to the head of Réunion to complain about the "dogs as shark bait" scandal, which had caused a media storm.
These all dissuaded people from visiting the island and receipts from tourism fell by 27% and employment declined in the hotel industry.
[36] The CTR blamed the drop in tourism on the epidemic,[37] in addition to the negative image that the island had suffered in the media.
[38] Believing the crisis to be cyclical, the CTR relaunched an information campaign, while the local tourism employers turned to the mainland for support.
Large groups with international stature, such as Bourbon and Accor, were excluded from state support due to European regulations.
They hoped this would relaunch the destination with the mainlanders and Réunion expatriates, and seduce foreign tourists with the Creole village punch and samosas.
At the same time, the Prime Minister told the agency Odit France to compile a report analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of tourism in Réunion.
Large efforts were made to kill the island's mosquito population, and the tourist industry began to recover.
[46] The Domaine du Grand Hazier, an 18th-century home of a sugar planter and official French historical monument, has a large garden with fruit trees and tropical flowers.
