Tourism Seychelles amongst first to conduct workshops across key Indian cities

In the well-attended interactive workshops, the agents shared their
challenges in marketing Seychelles and discussed ways in which they can
better reach their end consumers, who are vastly selective about
destinations owing to current circumstances.

In a pre-COVID-19 era, Ahmedabad, Nagpur along with other Tier 2 cities
closer to Mumbai had performed well, increasing arrival figures to the
paradise islands of the Seychelles while also forming an audience base
which was among the first to bounce back when international travel
started gaining momentum.

Commenting about the workshop strategy, Ms. Lubaina Sheerazi, CEO and
Co-founder BRANDit, the Marketing and PR office representing Tourism
Seychelles in India said, “Seychelles has always seen traffic not only
from an informed audience in metro cities but also from an affluent
segment from Tier 2 markets. We have successfully been able to raise
awareness for the destination in over 15 Tier 2 cities in the past years
and have witnessed a visible increase in leads and conversions during
pre-COVID times. However, with the pandemic severely affecting pan-India
finances, we gauge a faster recovery in the travel segment from small
cities and towns comprising consumers with family businesses and hence
would like to continue these targeted workshops with dedicated agents
across India.”

Turnout was excellent with the Ahmedabad workshop, conducted on 10th December 2021, attracting over 95% of agents invited, while the Nagpur workshop on 21st December 2021 garnered over 85% attendance.

The majority were partners looking to reconnect and learn about the recent
updates in Seychelles, thus helping them in better promoting the
destination.

The sales visit in Delhi was also extremely successful, Ms Sheerazi
said, giving the team a real time sentiment checks as well as an update
on the agents and their way of working post pandemic. The meetings
proved to be fruitful in giving the team genuine insights of the
changing travel trade fraternity and their approach to business in this
new normal, she explained.

Emphasizing the strategic long term benefits of relationship marketing
in India, Mrs Bernadette Willemin, Director General of Destination
Marketing for Tourism Seychelles commented, “Relationship marketing is
very important in our business, hence the necessity for Tourism
Seychelles to stay in close contact with the different stakeholders on
the market. Where and when possible to conduct physically events and
meetings, so much the better as we build a better experience for our
partners, and a deeper engagement with our business. This in turn helps
to retain our partners and build up loyalty over the long term, ensuring
a better sales conversion rate.

The Indian market, just like many of our traditional markets, is very
trade driven thus the importance of ensuring that travel professionals
amongst both wholesalers and retailers are very well versed with our
product offers and also the latest development in the destination.”
Tourism Seychelles, through its India office, will continue to meet with
Indian agents across the country in 2022, with a dedicated sales
strategy. It hopes to form small associations with agents across India
for added spillover marketing alongside trade support.

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