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Direct flights resume between Mauritius and Geneva

Mauritius beach scene.
Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island nation, is well known for its beaches, lagoons and reefs. Keystone

Air Mauritius has resumed direct flights between Mauritius and Geneva. The popular service was suspended for three years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The twice-weekly offer is initially available on Mondays and Fridays until April 30, 2024.

The higher price of the direct flights – 15 to 20% more expensive than the competition via Paris or Dubai – does not seem to deter travellers. The flights, which were supposed to stop in January, will continue until the end of April. 

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“Customers are willing to pay more for a direct flight: it provides comfort and a minimised or optimised footprint compared to other flights,” Stéphane Jayet, vice president of the Swiss Travel Federation, told Swiss public radio RTS on Tuesday.

Many reasons explain the success of this destination: long-standing links with Switzerland, no time difference, a French-speaking country, and not a niche market, according to the tourism expert.

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“The direct Geneva-Mauritius flight connection plan has been almost doubled. We reach a supply of over 35,000 seats, many of which are in business class,” he said.

“It’s a sector that is picking up with the movement of business travellers,” he said. Since the start of the year, the number of business class travellers has increased by 40% compared to 2022.

After three years of absence, the Indian Ocean island is expecting over 1.5 million tourists, even more than before the pandemic.

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

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