Every person in Mauritius had "gone into shock and deep sorrow" following the murder of Michaela Harte, the director of the Mauritius Tourist Board has said.
Dr Karl Mootoosamy travelled to Dublin on Thursday to meet tour operators and some press here today.
He travels to London tomorrow to meet the Mauritius high commissioner Abhimanu Kundasamy in advance of his attendance at Ms Harte's funeral in Ballygawley, Co Tyrone on Monday.
Among the five tour operators Dr Mootoosamy met today were Twohigs and Sunway Tours, both of who have had little adverse reaction from customers to the news from the Indian Ocean island.
Joanne Coll, longhaul manager with Twohigs said she had been "quite amazed" that no customers with bookings to Mauritius had been in touch about cancelling.
"I did think we'd have some calls but there hasn't been one. We even have people booked into the Legends resort and none have looked to cancel or transfer to a different property."
About 40 per cent of the Twohigs business was in honeymoons and Mauritius was their third most popular destination.
Tanya Airey, managing director of Sunway Holidays, said there had been very few calls from concerned customers though one had been in touch to transfer their booking from the Legends hotel to another on the island.
Dr Mootoosamy said the shock in Mauritius was "immense".
"The grief is immeasurable. What has happened is just so unbelievable and unacceptable; the grief of the people is everywhere in the street."
This was the first murder of a tourist on the island.
Asked whether tour or hotel operators were worried about its impact on the industry, he said: "This is not the time to think about that. This is not the issue now. The issue is that we want to say we are all very, very sad."
"When we heard the terrible news of what happened I met with all the hotel operators on the island and after we took the decision that I must come to the people here to tell them how so sad we are, how the people are suffering and the Government is suffering. We just cannot accept that this has happened on our island.
"Mauritius is a land of emotion and happiness, of children and love. This is something that has happened to our heart."
The tourism industry is the third most important in terms of revenue and employment on the island - with the textiles and the sugar industries more important.
"We get about 930,000 visitors per year. We have a population of 1.2 million. About 4,000 per year come from Ireland, with 110,000 from Britain."
Britain and Ireland are the second most important for long-haul visitors, behind France which sends about 300,000 per year.
"Tourism is the third pillar industry, but it is the most important emotionally for the people of Mauritius. We are very proud of our country and want to welcome people, to open our hearts to people" said Dr Mootoosamy.
"We do not know how this could have happened, what happened. Did these people [the alleged killers] go into some kind of panic?
"We feel like we have lost our own family. Everyone just is so miserable that this has happened in Mauritius."
