Seychelles announces marine heritage event

The Seychelles SUBIOS event started off as an Underwater and Image Festival, which has been an annual event since 1989. SUBIOS has long been popular for showcasing the islands’ magnificent marine heritage with a tantalizing suite of marine-oriented activities, presentations, film-shows, school projects, and, of course, image and film competition.

After their successful carnival of carnivals in March this year, the Seychelles islands have launched the brochure for their Festival of the Sea, which is set to take place from November 4-6 in the lovely and picturesque bay of Beau Vallon on the north of the main island of Mahe.

This year, the Seychelles Tourism Board as the organizers of SUBIOS, has announced ambitious plans to build on the excellent foundation that it has built over more than 20 years and expand its raft of activities to become “Seychelles Festival of the Sea.” Due to be held between November 4-6, 2011, the Festival of the Sea will retain certain traditional elements such as the popular Underwater Film & Image Competition, while embracing several new concepts in a venue on the beach front at Beau Vallon against a flotilla of decorated boats. This year will also see raft building, a traditional activity brought back to life, with schools encouraged to prepare to enter this competition and to race their raft across the bay of Beau Vallon.

Arrangements are also being made to have a choice of floating eateries, as well as food stalls with a seafood theme, and a raft of other entertainment options, competitions, and live music shows.

In a drive to give SUBIOS, Seychelles Festival of the Sea greater international exposure, four high-profile magazines have become Official Partners of the Seychelles Festival. The four magazines of the Asian Geographic Group of magazines are: Asian Geographic, Asian Diver, Asian PASSPORT, and Australasian Scuba Diver. These magazines have now become the Official Publications of the event.

“The Seychelles Tourism Board marketing machinery will now be working on ensuring that this Festival of the Sea is known as widely as possible both here in Seychelles and in the four corners of the world. We are already finalizing arrangements for a large group of divers from Asia to be in Seychelles for the Underwater Film & Image Competition,” said Alain St.Ange, CEO of the Seychelles Tourism Board.

Myrna Michel, the Seychelles Tourism Board’s Director for Asia & Australasia, has been instrumental in forging the relationship with the Asian Geographic Group of magazines. In March this year, she had invited two representatives of Asian Geographic to Seychelles to cover the 2011 “Carnaval International de Victoria,” and they took time during that visit to explore the underwater attractions of the Seychelles islands. This visit has been key to convincing the Asian Geographic Magazine’s Group of publications to become the Official Publication of “SUBIOS, the Seychelles Festival of the Sea.”