Tourism in Madagascar

Tourism in Madagascar is underdeveloped. Madagascar's tourist attractions include its biodiversity and beaches.

Tourist attractions

Madagascar has world class tourism assets. It has a high potential for tourism because of its biodiversity, unique wildlife, and long coastline. It is the world's fourth largest island and has almost 5,000 km of coastline and a large continental shelf equal to 20% of the island's land area. It is one of the world's most biologically diverse areas. It has many unique indigenous species, and is internationally renowned as a wildlife tourism and ecotourism destination, focusing on lemurs, birds, and orchids. There are 30 species of lemur. The indri (Indri indri) is the largest and loudest lemur species. One of the best places to observe the indri is the Perinet Wildlife Reserve, 4 hours away from the capital. One family group of indri in the park is habituated to humans and are thus easy for tourists for observe.

Tourism is concentrated in three major areas, around the Madagascar's capital of Antananarivo, on the island of Nosy Be in the northwest and on the island of Île Sainte-Marie to the east. Beach tourism is the main attraction in these areas.

Tourism numbers

312,000 tourists visited Madagascar in 2006. Since 1990, the number of tourists in the country has grown at an average rate of 11% each year. 60% of its tourists are French, who form the majority of Madagascar's tourists because of cultural and historical links between the countries and flight routes. Highly educated people who are interested in the country's botany, lemurs, birds, or natural history also make up a large part of its visitors. These visitors often travel as part of a tour and stay in the country for a long period of time. Most of madagascar's tourism is low volume, high cost tourism.

By the mid 1990s, tourism was the country's second largest export earner, bringing in US$50 million annually. For 2007, tourism's contribution to Madagascar's GDP (direct and indirect impact) was estimated to account for 6.3% of GDP and 206,000 jobs (5.1% total employment).

The tourist industry was badly damaged in late 2001 because of a political crisis and following economic recession. The number of tourists in 2002 in fell, but the tourism industry subsequently recovered and continued to grow steadily.

There is growing interest in the country as a tourist destination. The country has beautiful landscapes and the cultural resources to support tourism. These resources provide many opportunities for the development of both ecotourism and resort based tourism. Despite this growth in tourism, its tourism industry is very small. Its tourist industry is much smaller than those of the neighbouring Seychelles and Mauritius islands, and is the smallest among the islands in the Indian Ocean.

Development of tourism

Madagascar's government has promoted tourism as an economic development strategy. With over 70% of the country living in poverty, tourism is seen as a way to reduce poverty and provide economic growth. Tourism is currently the second largest foreign exchange earner in the country, and the government hopes to increase this share. Still in the early stages of development, there is large potential for the tourist industry to grow as Madagascar's infrastructure improves. The tourism industry has a number of large challenges. Travel and tourism is poorly diversified, infrastructure is poor, roads are poorly paved, and airline travel is expensive and unreliable. There are few high quality hotels, and less that meet international standards. It has approximately 550 hotels, about 110 of which have been classified as meeting international standards. Air Madagascar and Air France dominate air travel, which makes the price of flights expensive. The country's status as a long-haul destination further increases prices.