Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association puts forward concerns of the industry

Tourism and Culture Minister Alain St.Ange and Mr. Freddy Karkaria, the Chairperson of the Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association, met again this week as part of their monthly series of meetings that keeps open the dialogue between public and private tourism sector. At their September meeting, it was agreed that there is a need for the tourism trade, the Tourism Board, and the Ministry of Tourism and Culture to focus on three main areas of concern which has also been raised during the recent multi-sectorial meeting chaired by Vice President Danny Faure.

These areas are air access; operating cost and the ease of doing business in Seychelles; and thirdly, targeted destination marketing.

Minister St.Ange and Mr. Karkaria’s meeting follows the Minister’s last door-to-door of tourism establishments on Praslin where Mr. Karkaria had joined in as part of the official delegation. This latest meeting was an opportunity to discuss pertinent issues resulting from comments and concerns picked up during the door-to-door at Praslin and also for the industry’s representative to table matters that are seen as challenges for the tourism industry.

Attending the meeting were Principal Secretary for Tourism Anne Lafortune and the Chief Executive of the Seychelles Tourism Board, Sherin Naiken.

During the meeting, Minister St.Ange and Mr. Karkaria also discussed on the follow-ups by the respective authorities of the concerns raised during the multi-sectorial meeting.

Minister Alain St.Ange and CEO Sherin Naiken also used the meeting to inform Mr. Freddy Karkaria, the Chairman of the Tourism Industry’s Association, of the arrival in Seychelles on September 15 of the bosses of 5 top French tour operators.

As France is one of the main source markets for the country’s tourism industry, the arrival of the tour operators will play a key role in repositioning the French market especially now that Air Seychelles flies to Paris. “We at the Tourism Board must be congratulated on this move. This is targeted marketing by the Tourism Board for the benefit of Seychelles. Visibility for Seychelles is not achieved by huge spending on one-off advertisement in newspapers, because we do not have the budget to sustain this approach, which is why we have instead targeted our marketing approach on door-to-door visits of tour operators and their travel agents through destination training sessions, road shows such as the Escapades in France, and now getting the bosses of tour operators to revisit us, meet us, and re-discover our beautiful country,” said Minister St.Ange.

A tentative schedule and logistics for their meeting with trade partners and others was discussed between the Ministry, the Tourism Board and the Tourism Industry. Ms. Naiken of the Tourism Board said that she was counting on the tourism trade to extend the necessary support to not only make this high-level visit possible, but also the success it deserves to be. Mr Karkaria, the Chairman of the Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association, said that he welcomed this fresh approach of targeted marketing and suggested that the same exercise should be undertaken for the other key tourism markets of Seychelles.

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