Integrating Leisure: The Case of an Integrated Resorts Scheme in Mauritius

Abstract

Mauritius, part of Southern African Development Community (SADC), is in
the process of diversifying its tourism sector, which for the last two decades
has attracted substantial foreign direct investment. To diversify tourism and
sustain economic development achieved in the 1980s, government is encouraging
various projects and opportunities for investment. One of these is the Integrated
Resorts Schemes (IRS). Based on preliminary ethnography of an IRS project, this article
discusses the multiple implications of such projects in Mauritius. The article outlines
and discusses the corporate responsibility programme of the project and argues that
the IRS project, Anahita, has the potential to infl uence social and not just economic
development on the island. However, as a project aimed at foreign investors
seeking exclusive products and service, it risks reproducing relations of power and
skewing access to resources on the island.

Africa Insight Vol. 38 (1) 2008: pp. 146-158