CHINESE VISITORS TO SEYCHELLES TOP THE 10.000 MARK
(Posted 18th September 2014)
‘Our Chinese visitors have taken to the Seychelles like the fish take to water. We think that the launch of flights by Air Seychelles to Hong Kong have helped a great deal to make connections between China and the islands easier. I agree with many of my colleagues though that nonstop flights would be preferable. Additionally does Emirates and Etihad bring traffic from their Chinese destinations to Mahe and we hope that more and more tourists from there will come visit. Some of our more traditional markets are a bit soft right now and I think some of the issues will be discussed at Top Resa very soon when the operators from that country can voice their issues. But the missions STB had in China over the past years are now paying off and these are tourist which use all sorts of accommodation from 5 star to even budget accommodation’ wrote a regular source from Victoria when sharing the news update overnight.
Tourism Board sources say that the upswing in arrivals has nearly doubled compared to a year ago and that China is now already the fifth leading country of tourist origin, justifying the expense of sales missions and the investment by national airline Air Seychelles in the route.
China also participates in the Seychelles calendar of events where a special China Day weekend celebration has raised the destination profile and this year’s winning performance by a Chinese carnival troupe at the Carnival International de Victoria has only added to the media exposure the Seychelles have enjoyed in China and Hong Kong.
While overall arrivals, compared to last year, have remained almost static, is a boost of visitor numbers expected between now and the end of the year, mainly attributed to the poor performance of the French market this year. Here the source in Victoria expressed the hope that the re-launch of direct flights by Air Seychelles in July, even though routing via Abu Dhabi, to Paris will rekindle interest and that the flights will help recapture lost market share in coming months. While no information about load factors are presently available have suggestions emerged that Air Seychelles should consider to add more flights to Paris and consider a nonstop operation in order to make visits to the archipelago even easier.
