Seychelles discusses tourism plans for Hong Kong and China

The private sector tourism trade from the Seychelles made time as they were in Hong Kong for the inaugural flight of their national airline to Hong Kong to meet as a group to hear from Cramer Ball, th

The private sector tourism trade from the Seychelles made time as they were in Hong Kong for the inaugural flight of their national airline to Hong Kong to meet as a group to hear from Cramer Ball, the CEO of Air Seychelles about their forward strategies and about their plans for Hong Kong & China.

The Seychelles Tourism Trade meeting was also attended by Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture and Elsia Grandcourt, the CEO of the islandโ€™s Tourism Board.

Senior Management of Air Seychelles and their Marketing Team were also present as well as Stephanie Lablache and Christine Vel, Senior Marketing Executive of the Seychelles Tourism Board.

Minister St.Ange, who opened the meeting spoke about the need for togetherness to keep Seychelles as a relevant tourism destination. โ€œWe are doing well. Even as our traditional core markets are suffering from economic difficulties, our strategies in place, strategies coined together in partnership at our annual marketing meetings, is working and bearing dividends. Today it is an even more solid united approach we need to develop and adopt as times are hard in our main markets. We need to work with the press to get editorials and reviews. We cannot play pages of adverts or advertorials as our budget will never sustain this approach โ€“ plus this is you saying haw you see yourself and your services. We are lucky to be able to invite the press and let them free to roam our islands because in Seychelles there are no places we would not want press to visit. The beauty of our islands and the unique selling points we have will impress our visiting press and after their visit they will become Ambassadors of our islands. We need to all rally our forces to bring press out this year and increase our visibility to greater heights. The annual carnival brings the biggest number of international press in the one go to our shores and this sets the pace for the remainder of the year.โ€ Minister Alain St.Ange said.

The CEO of Air Seychelles, Cramer Ball presented the gathered private sector tourism trade members with a series of facts and figures. With a series of slides Mr Ball showed the air connectivity now offered by Air Seychelles through their own services and through code share agreements now in place. Mr Ball also used the opportunity to confide in the Seychelles with news about coming code share agreements and events where the islandโ€™s tourism trade are invited to join with Air Seychelles to showcase Seychelles.

Members of the private sector trade present and the CEO of the Tourism Board sought explanations on some of the points raised and following an open discussion forum styled approach, they all said in ending that they felt more positive about the way forward following the explanations received about their national airlines plan of action.

Air Seychelles and the Tourism Board agreed to organize more such trade meetings.

Seychelles is a founding member of the International Coalition of Tourism Partners (ICTP).

PHOTO (L to R): Seychelles Tourism Board CEO Elsia Grandcourt, Seychelles Minister for Tourism Alain St.Ange, CEO of Air Seychelles Cramer Ball lead a tourism trade meeting in Hong Kong

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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