Beware the so-called Official Site for Mauritius!

Do a google search of "official mauritius tourist office" and you'll get mauritius.net at the top and it claims to be the "The Official Site for Mauritius" which even lists the addresses of the Mauritian tourist offices throughout the world. I bet it fooled you into believing that this is the official government-owned tourist web site for Mauritius. Well you are not alone as even the venerable Lonely Planet lists this web site as the official tourist web site on its Travel Links page for Mauritius.

Well, mauritius.net is just pretending to be the official site while it is privately owned and makes money by selling you flight and hotel packages to the island. For some reason the Mauritian government is unable or unwilling to stop this abuse despite the outrage felt by the Mauritian tourism minister in a local newspaper.

So, please don't be fooled. If you need the official tourist web site pick the second web site listed in the google search results:

http://www.tourism-mauritius.mu/

Hotel News

One of the purpose of this blog is to bring you travel-related news about Mauritius that you may not be able to get unless you live on the island or have regular access to local sources of news. To this end Today's L'Express, a popular local newspaper on the island, reported on upgrades that are being planned on a number of hotels in Mauritius. Among the hotels that we track on MauritiusVisit.com, the Trou-Aux-Biches hotel is being planned for demolition and complete rebuilding in 2008 and it will be much larger with the number of rooms increasing from 170 to 494. In Flic-en-Flac, the Sofitel Imperial Hotel will be closed for an upgrade from May to July this year with the goal of making it into a 5-star hotel.

More information can be found by reading the L'Express article (written in French) and the Google translation of it in English (many of Hotel names are also literally translated so take note!) can be read here.

The article also contains information about hotels that are not mentioned on MauritiusVisit.com because they are currently not visible on Google maps for various reasons such as they are may be hidden by clouds, they were not built yet at the time the aerial pictures were taken or they may be found on portions of the map which are low in resolution. As Google improves the quality of the map covering Mauritius we will add information about more hotels and other interesting places. But in case we missed any interesting site that is clearly visible on the map right now do not hesitate to suggest it right here!

MauritiusVisit.com on Google Maps Mania

Mike Pegg from Google Maps Mania, a blog tracking websites, mashups and tools being influenced by Google Maps, has written a nice blog on MauritiusVisit.com. Thanks Mike!

Check out the blog here!

MauritiusVisit.com is online!

Come and visit mauritiusvisit.com, a google earth mashup web site that allows you to see close-up views, photos and reviews of some of the most interesting sites such as hotels, beaches and attractions in the beautiful island of Mauritius.

If you know of a great place on the island, its location and have a photo of it why not share it with the rest of the world by putting it on the map at mauritiusvisit.com.

dany