Abstract

Several countries have encouraged tourism development as a major economic alternative. However, the tourism industry is highly competitive resulting in the necessity to constantly re-examine the evolving set of factors that affect the ability of a destination to compete so as to remain economically sustainable. Destination image is an essential component of a well established and competitive destination. The purpose of this paper is to determine if the destination image of Mauritius is perceived positively by tourists. A survey was carried out with departing tourists and the findings reveal that Mauritius benefits from a strong positioning through both its functional and psychological image attributes. The study identifies strong and weak image attributes which if not rectified may impinge on the economic sustainability of the holiday destination.