SEYCHELLES EYE 15.000 CRUISE PASSENGERS BY 2017
(Posted 04th October 2015)
Recent high level meetings between not just Seychelles but other Vanilla Islands tourism organizations officials with cruise lines seem to have yielded prompt results, as Costa Cruises is accelerating their Indian Ocean cruise programmes. The deals were sealed at the just concluded Top Resa tourism travel show in Paris, where the meetings took place.
Over the next two years does the company intend to bring as many as 15.000 high value clients to the Seychelles islands.
Cruise and Fly itineraries will allow cruise passengers to embark and disembark at Port Victoria, either starting or ending their cruise on the paradise islands.
The proposals for a vastly increased presence of cruise ships in the Indian Ocean were first floated earlier this year when these officials met on Mahe ahead of the 5th Carnival International de Victoria, when, by design or coincidence a Costa Cruiseship was in the harbour.
Costa Cruises will offer a total of 11 two week cruises from the winter season 2016/17 onwards, covering all the key ports and islands like Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion.
In contrast has Crystal Cruises also indicated that they plan to position one of their smaller cruise ships to be based in Port Victoria and explore the various Seychellois islands with a separate cruise itinerary, giving their passengers a taste of the various inner and outer islands of the sprawling archipelago of 115 islands.
This development signals a return to normalcy since the Somali ocean terrorists were all but defeated by a global naval coalition in which the Seychelles played and continue to play a major role in surveillance and monitoring of the sea lanes.
