Features

Reimagining Mauritius’ hidden gem

La Vallée des Couleurs, a leading tourist destination on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, was struggling to communicate its more adventurous side. Abbey Bamford explores how Brand Lounge reinterpreted the park – and, in doing so, helped create an entirely new category.

If you’ve been to Mauritius, you’ll know its vibrant landscapes are a huge part of its identity, but one destination hadn’t yet found a unique and authentic way to tap into its locality. That was the challenge Brand Lounge set out to solve in rebranding Vallé, the island’s premier adventure and nature park, formerly known as La Vallée des Couleurs.

Famed for its 23-Coloured Earth and adrenaline-pumping activities, the park had long operated beneath its potential. Though it was rich in experience, its offering and identity were being lost in translation – quite literally.

“They had so much to offer, but were totally invisible,” recalls Ibrahim Lahoud, head of strategy and insights at Brand Lounge. “They were overshadowed by big international operators, even though those competitors didn’t have half of what Vallé had,” he explains.

As part of the discovery phase, Brand Lounge actually visited three of the top parks as mystery guests – places run by French and British conglomerates – and while their offerings were limited, their communications were louder, cleaner and more globally attuned. Vallé, by contrast, had better ziplines, more space and a more immersive experience, but you wouldn’t have known it from the outside, according to the studio.

The park’s original identity contributed to that confusion. The name, a mouthful for most international visitors, blurred into other similarly themed parks across Mauritius. Not only this, but green-dominant branding blended into the lush landscape and – despite offering high-adrenaline activities like ziplining, quad biking and luge carts – Vallé was misperceived as a tranquil nature walk. “They were communicating quietly about an incredibly loud offering,” says Lahoud.

The Brand Lounge team was initially approached for a logo refresh. However, following a site visit (taken incognito as mystery guests) and competitor analysis, the project quickly expanded. What was needed wasn’t a tweak, but a total transformation that matched Vallé’s real-world energy and redefined what it stood for.

Categorical distinction

From this emerged a new positioning and category: Advenature™. Coined by Brand Lounge during strategic workshops, the term gave equal weight to two sides of the experience that had previously felt in tension. “It wasn’t just about the zipline,” says Lahoud. “It was about why that zipline matters here – why quad biking in Vallé is different from anywhere else.”

Advenature™ not only reframed the value proposition, but also created space for future expansion, from beaches and deserts to forests and cities. The term fuses adrenaline and nature into a distinct experience type while embracing Mauritius’ extremes and invites visitors to find their own rhythm within them.

“We weren’t just rebranding,” says Lahoud. “We were creating a category to escape competition altogether. It opened up a future-proof way for Vallé to expand to new geographies without losing its soul.”

As well as reframing the park’s unique duality, Advenature™ became the core of a strategy that looked inward as much as outward. Brand Lounge conducted YouGov research across Germany, France and the UK – Mauritius’ top tourism markets – to test perception. While many tourists recognised La Vallée des Couleurs by name, they confused it with rival destinations, or didn’t associate it with adrenaline at all.

The strategic solution began with language. The name Vallé was already widely used by staff and locals, making it a natural evolution. The new purpose – ‘Unearthing the true colours of Mauritius so you live the pulse of every breath’ – set the foundation for every creative choice that followed. The central brand idea ultimately became ‘Live the Pulse.’

“Nature is low pulse. Adventure is high pulse,” explains Lahoud. “Together, they give you the full range of what it means to be alive.”

Play the angle

From this thinking came a motion-first identity, according to Brand Lounge’s head of design and creative impact, Mo Saad. The logo is shaped by a 7% tilt, echoing the ideal zipline angle, and typography follows the same slope, giving every asset a sense of movement. Meanwhile, bold colours drawn from the Mauritian flag replace the dominant greens of the old identity, ensuring the brand stands out against the island’s saturated backdrops.

It’s also clear that Vallé doesn’t shout for attention arbitrarily. Its new visual language is built on a principle the team call Triple A: Alive, Agile, Active. “Everything needed to feel like it had a pulse,” says Saad. “The brand had to breathe. It had to be flexible enough to stay interesting, and active enough to adapt to any medium or space.”

That agility meant rethinking traditional design rules. “We didn’t design for consistency – we designed for synergy,” Saad says. “It had to look like Vallé even when no two assets looked the same.” Every visual element was designed with motion in mind, from adrenaline lines that move dynamically across screens to type that shifts with a 7% tilt.

Saad explains how every single asset also had to pass a motion test. “We’d ask: can it move, and will it move? That’s what brought the brand to life.”

The park's distinctive new tone of voice is also a key differentiator for the new identity. Inspired by Mauritian Creole, the language is rhythmic, expressive and full of local colour. Even the name itself nods to Creole phonetics: simplified, energetic and proudly local. Some phrases appear with an asterisk, explained in English, allowing global visitors to feel welcomed without erasing the park’s roots.

“You don’t come to Mauritius to visit something that could be anywhere,” says Lahoud. “You come to experience Mauritius. Vallé had to reflect that. We designed it for the locals first, knowing that’s what would ultimately attract the world.”

Internally, Brand Lounge helped the team rally around the new brand with a full-day induction and staff celebration. The event included presentations on the strategy and creative system, the unveiling of new uniforms and merchandise and a Creole-inspired lunch that echoed the spirit of the brand.

“We needed the team to feel it, not just see it,” says Saad. “They’re now the brand’s most powerful ambassadors.” Uniforms, merchandise and a vibrant outdoor campaign extended the energy across the island. In the first six hours after the campaign launched, Vallé’s website received 20,000 hits – a striking response for a local activation.

Wider implications

The real cultural impact of this rebrand seemed to be reaching beyond the park’s perimeters too, triggering new conversations about how Mauritius presents itself globally. At the launch event, the country’s junior minister of tourism addressed the audience and gave his seal of approval: Vallé, he said, represented the future of Mauritian tourism – a homegrown brand leading with culture, creativity and pride.

“It was a turning point,” says Lahoud. “Suddenly, we weren’t just branding a park. We were influencing the national conversation.” Saad adds, “That was a moment of validation – to see Vallé become a benchmark for national tourism strategy.”

There’s also wider ambition to expand the newly created Advenature™ category beyond Mauritius into regions like the Seychelles or the Middle East. With this in mind, Brand Lounge created a system that travels, but never dilutes, and while the adrenaline may differ and the landscapes may shift, the pulse remains.

For Saad, the biggest shift wasn’t visual – it was personal. “I was uncomfortable at first. I wasn’t sure how far we could push things, but this project taught me the value of creative discomfort. It forced me out of my comfort zone – and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Lahoud agrees. “We spent half the time acting like tourists, and the other half like brand consultants. That’s how we found the pulse. It wasn’t just a strategy – it was a feeling we experienced firsthand.”

In a place as vibrant and varied as Vallé, there was never going to be one speed, one voice or one story. That’s the brilliance of the brand: it doesn’t try to flatten the experience into something smooth or generic, but amplifies the chaos, the colour and the quiet.

The result is a destination brand that lives, breathes and pulses with Mauritius’ true identity and makes sure the world can hear it.