Where the bloody hell have we been......Our current Indian Ocean Tourism initiatives

Where the bloody hell have we been ?? Blogging is not always easy...... We have been working on tourism projects, but not in the vain of Tourism Australia's ad.

We have been doing some great promotions recently and have some great new national ones coming up.

Mauritius continues to be a great focus for co promotions with our current MX News campaign, "Win a Trip to Mauritius" receiving loads of interest thanks to twice weekly inserts in the newspapers over 3 weeks.

The prize is supported by Veranda Resorts, Air Austral and my company, Reunion and Beyond ( the dedicated holiday programme for Australians - a joint initiative with Air Austral ). If you are an Australian resident and want to enter for a chance to win - do so now !! Entries close 30 October 2010.

Upcoming co promos include a campaign and a great giveaway prize with Air Mauritius and a resort (TBA) with a big national bookseller of some note - with an immense database of almost a million subscribers, and almost 100 stores across Australia.

We help out Special Olympics Australia as often as we can and have a great project lead by @Envirotrade in partnership with Solis IO in Mauritius to help the people of Gorongosa in Mozambique.

My new project | The launch of our new site www.visitmauritius.com.au has taken up a lot of my time. Designed to be an organically high ranking, local site for Australian travellers, VisitMauritius.com.au is an opt in platform for island service providers to reach an Australian audience. Looking to holiday in Mauritius.

Visitmauritius.com.au already great support from our major hotel partners on the island, Veranda Resorts being the first to jump on board and sponsor their pages. If you’re not listed, and want to be - print and send me a service agreement !

The site is 90% finished - so stay tuned for more plus integration into our other platforms and news distribution. If you want to join up to receive news - like the Facebook app or follow VisitMauritius.com.au on twitter

You may have missed the last segment on Getaway | Channel 9 Australia's travel show - the travel show with Australia's largest audience ? If you did - check out the page and our Reunion Island segment here

Africa is getting loads of interest and bookings in our office thanks to a strong AUD. Lots of Mauritius and Africa enquiries showing a continued love by Australians for a safari and resort holiday. Reunion Island continues to generate a lot of interest in the Australian market but is traditionally hard to convert into bookings.

If you missed the news - the Piton de La Fournaise erupted generating a lot of calls about volcano tours in Reunion Island !

Welcome Oryx Worldwide Photographic Expeditions to our expanding product range - a great new supplier, operating small photography tours with award winning photographers. Not for those taking pictures of animals with iPhones.

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Gorongosa Community Project | Envirotrade

In case you missed the eNews/twitter/Facebook news from my company AB Holidays - here is the great new community initiative we are moving ahead with in partnership with Solis IO - our ground handler in Mauritius.

Every passenger we book - every time our partner travel agents book a customer, every friend you refer to Mauritius helps reduce carbon and help the community in Gorongosa, Mozambique. Click here to find out more http://bit.ly/cb82O7

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V Australia | What a shame........

Another old blog review...... Jenman Safaris | Into the Australian Market | Competition on the Africa route from Australia

Well – the world cup is over | views are mixed on its success and the world moves on to other things. My old blog post was written just after my last trip to South Africa and just before the World Cup.

So.....the Jenman Safaris – product is going great !! Lots of interest – lots of great bookings and lots of great adventures for our clients. V Australia on the other hand..........I don’t know what else to say.......what a shame.

World Cup over, ex Qantas boss appointed new chief – and out the door goes the Johannesburg route and the Phuket route ex Melbourne with a new “corporate” focus on the Abu Dhabi route.

Now Australians are back again to where we started. SAA ex Perth and Qantas ex Sydney. Get ready for expensive tickets to Africa again !!

With renewed passenger interest in the Australian route for Air Mauritius, thanks to returning to Sydney – and Air Austral continuing to be strong in the market place, we hope and aim to push the fact that these two offer something more than just a flight : the opportunity to experience something new and exciting on the way to Africa ( Mauritius or Reunion Island ) as well as great product and affordable fares.

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Indian Ocean Tourism | Working together...........

I recently released some news - on a new page on my website titled : MTPA and IRT to work together . This was in response to a media article put out by the MTPA signalling discussions between the two bodies to work cooperatively towards creating a better holistic tourism approach for th two islands. With a strong drive to China and India 

I wanted to spread some news, highlight some of the differences between the two destinations and working with the tourist boards. I pointed to my companies travel brochures ( Mauritius - Reunion -  distributed to travel agents across Australia ) and our Reunion Island famil review flyer ( we hosted a Air Austral, Flight Centre, independants famil) and the amazing Saachi and Saachi produced IRT tourism video.

Our Mauritius travel brochure is full of hotels - with all the main hoteliers being strong partners of ours.

The Reunion Island brochure which features more Reunion Island content than any other travel brochure we can find - anywhere - showcases some of the smaller and more traditional types of tourism. Especially with the Village Creole program in Reunion Island. Check out Air Australs new radio clip for the Australian market

We work closely with the IRT - to the extent that good numbers of Australians now know of Reunion and consider it and Mauritius as a popular tourist destination.

The MTPA on the other hand is a totally different kettle of fish. Air Mauritius, the national airline, have 4 flights a week ex Australia to Mauritius. The airlines has invested in the route and is working hard to ensure it is sustainable.

With the airline and our hotel partners support we do our best to market the destination - and send tourists to Mauritius. See our recent product ad's in The Age, the Australian and Community News in Western Australia.

This year alone we have sent lots of tourists to Mauritius. Numbers from Australia are up 33.5% | Yet we hear nothing on the ground in Australia from the MTPA. Not even a meeting.

We hope that the MTPA support situation can be rectified soon - so that a collective, wholistic approach from Australian tour operators selling Mauritius ( Above and Beyond, Beachcomber, Fiesta Holidays , Wildlife Safari ) can generate the required tourist numbers to sustain 4 flights a week from Air Mauritius and 2 flights a week from Air Austral.

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