Seychelles opened its historic inter-Ministerial, high-level task force meeting to look into issues affecting the tourism industry.

This first meeting chaired by Seychelles Vice President Danny Faure was described by the islands’ private sector as a golden opportunity for tackling the heart of the problem in the tourism industry and for getting “things done.”

“This should be the approach. If there are issues that we cannot answer, we will be frank with you, to tell you today we don’t have solutions to these problems. We will bring these problems further up and then tackle them,” Vice President Faure said.

Through the presence of Idith Alexander, the Minister responsible for Employment and Human Resources Development; Christian Lionnet, the Minister responsible for Land Use and Housing; Professor Rolph Payet, the Minister responsible for the Environment and Energy; and Alain St.Ange, the Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture the head table was assembled. The meeting was called by Minister St.Ange at the request of the Seychelles Tourism Board following an appeal by private sector members sitting on the Board of Directors of the Tourism Board. “The seriousness and importance of this meeting pushed us to raise the meeting to the highest level,” Minister St.Ange said to the press after the opening of the meeting.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industries, tourism trade partners, private sector representatives, and civil authorities affiliated with the tourism industry unanimously accepted the invitation to make their voices heard on their tourism industry challenges as seen by the private sector.

Vice President Faure said the meeting advocated public-private sector partnerships.

“Tourism is the number one pillar of our economy. We cannot take this lightly, and the effort cannot be individual. It had to be a collective effort, and the approach should be one that looks at how Seychelles wins by the policies and strategies that we put in place.”

Alain St.Ange, the Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture, said the meeting was called from an appeal by the private sector.

“We can only achieve what we want to achieve for Seychelles tourism by seeing this spirit of dialogue, where civil servants, respective ministers, trade and business community sit together to look at Seychelles and its tourism industry. There is only one tourism industry; we do not have one belonging to the government and another one belonging to the private sector. We have only one Seychelles tourism industry which today works based on a public-private sector partnership,” said Minister Alain St.Ange.

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