The Voile d’Or was rebranded as Movenpick Resort & Spa Mauritius in November 2005, and since then well over $1.5 million has been spent on product improvements.
These include the creation of the 250 capacity Sharazad function room, built with stones from the region’s former sugar mills.
“The opening of these facilities has already brought in a lot of new business from meetings and conference organisers from the UK, Europe, South Africa and especially the GCC countries,” said recently appointed general manager John Wood.
Two new pavilions with 150 covered outdoor seats have been added to the main restaurant Le Moulin and a straw cabin gazebo was constructed. More product improvements will include the introduction of WI-FI throughout the resort and on the beach.
Due to the flight connections with Dubai, their main supplier country from the Middle East is the UAE, and last year visitor numbers from here totalled 600.
“We have tied up with a number of operators in the Middle East, including Emirates Holidays to feature our resort, and we are in the process of launching several marketing initiatives aimed at the various different markets in the Middle East and especially the GCC countries.
Emirates Holidays featured us on line as from December 2007 and we will be featured in their glossy travel brochure as from April 1. This has already started to produce bookings in a big way so we expect to double our GCC business in 2008 as compared to 2007.”
“Honeymoon and wedding packages are selling extremely well – we did 78 weddings in 2007 and already have 55 definitely booked for 2008 so we should easily go past the 100 mark this year,” said Wood. Honeymooners accounted for almost 14 per cent of their business in 2007.