Seychelles Tourism adopts new format for roadshow across Indian cities

The Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) office in India organized a three-city roadshow in Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai from September 18 to 22, 2017.

Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai send some of the highest numbers of visitors to Seychelles each year. The three cities are also home to travel trade partners that facilitate travel for most holidaymakers from the northern and western parts of India.

STB adopted the ‘round robin’ format across all three cities, which ensured pre-scheduled meetings between the local partners and the Indian travel trade, and was strictly by invitation. This allowed the participants from Seychelles to present their products and interact with the top companies selling the island destination, in the three top-performing cities in India.

It is the first time that the Seychelles Tourism Board’s India office has adopted such a format for its promotional efforts, since STB established a permanent presence in India 4 years ago, with the appointment of its representation office, based in Mumbai.

Commenting on the new format, Lubaina Sheerazi, the chief operating officer at Mumbai-based Blue Square Consultants, which represents the STB in India said: “We introduced this new format for the roadshow in the fourth year of Seychelles’ presence in the country keeping in mind the awareness and interest built over the years. The cities chosen contribute as the top performers for Seychelles and have shown great potential to rise further. We are pleased to have received such positive and encouraging feedback about the format and quality of meetings.”

Aside from introducing a new way of interaction, the roadshow also saw the highest turnout of participants from Seychelles, representing DMCs, hotels, cruise company and airlines.

This includes Mason’s Travel, 7 Degree South, Vision Voyages, Summer Rain Tours, Luxury Travel Services, MAIA Luxury Resort and Spa, Eden Bleu, Enchanted Island Resort, Savoy Resort, Le Relax Hotels, H Resort Beau Vallon Beach, Variety Cruises, Air Seychelles and Sri Lankan Airlines. The Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association (SHTA) was also represented.

The Seychelles tourism businesses had the opportunity to meet with some 60 top selling agents in each city. The success of the roadshow was evident through the 100% turnout as per the scheduled meetings and the positive feedback received about the events.

The Chief Executive of the STB, Mrs. Sherin Francis said: “We are happy to note the immense success of the three-city roadshow in India. The cities were chosen due to their current and potential capacities for outbound tourism to Seychelles. We have received only positive feedback about the format and execution by both our Seychelles partners and agents back in India. We look forward to strengthening our bonds with the Indian travel trade with more of such interactions with them.”

India is still a relatively new market for Seychelles whose bulk of visitors originate from Europe. 2016 was a great year for the Indian market with total arrivals amounting to 10,916, which represented an 88 percent increase over 2015 figures, finishing the year as the 10th largest source market for Seychelles.

For 2017, a total of 9,459 visitors from India have disembarked in Seychelles from January to October 1, compared to 7,535 during the same period in 2016, representing an increase of 26 percent. Seychelles enjoys 5 direct flights a week from Mumbai.