Written by Jean Paul Arouff | From Reuters Africa

Mauritius’s earnings from tourism dropped 4.5 percent in the first three months of 2014 compared with the same period last year to 11.51 billion rupees ($382 million) due to fewer visitors to the Indian Ocean island, data showed on Tuesday.

Tourism is a key source of income for the island’s $10 billion economy, but long-haul luxury destinations like Mauritius have suffered since the global economic downturn.

Statistics Mauritius said visitor arrivals in the first quarter fell 1 percent to 263,293. But it said it expected numbers for the full year to rise 3.7 percent from 2013 to 1,030,000.

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