Enclave tourism versus agritourism: the economic debate

The approaches to tourism development vary in different settings. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the conversation on the relative economic advantages of enclave and agritourism in a small island context. This study explicitly discusses these two forms of tourism in the island of Mauritius where tourism is a key pillar of the local economy. This study uses a novel format where stakeholder perspectives are reviewed based on a simulated debate between two sets of advocates. The debate arguments rely on a grounded methodology where in-depth interviews were conducted to gather the opinions of three substantial groups of stakeholders: notably, government officials, business interests and local community members. The multi-faceted arguments are built on the identified local concerns and perspectives and provide a forum for the voices of diverse participants from the tourism world of Mauritius. The format offers a rich, realistic set of arguments exploring the economic merits of both forms of tourism in a specific setting. Five main themes influence the economic support for tourism development: certainty of tourism income, scale of tourism development, employment, regional disparity and the challenge of change.