PRASLIN LOOKING FORWARD TO THE LAUNCH OF THE ‘CULINARY AND ARTS FIESTA’
(Posted 14th June 2014)
When the Seychelles’ Minister for Tourism and Culture, Alain St. Ange, together with his team from the Seychelles Tourism Board, met the tourism stakeholders on the second largest island of Praslin earlier this week, was a major decision taken that Praslin too will have a festival dedicated to it and featured in the archipelago’s calendar of events.
The first edition of the ‘Praslin Culinary and Arts Fiesta’ will kick off on the 05th of September this year and end on the 07th of September, showcasing the very best of the Seychelles cuisine, and that of course meaning by and large Kreol cuisine in all its manifestations. While the meeting in brief did talk about recipes an organizing committee will now make sure that from across the archipelago and in particular of course from all over Praslin recipes are collected and turned into culinary delights for the festival period. The Seychelles Tourism Academy, already organizing an annual chefs’ contest, has also confirmed that they will launch a separate competition for Praslin, coinciding with the festival dates in September.
Said Minister St. Ange at the end of the meeting: ‘The Ministry of Tourism and Culture and its Tourism Board are answering a call made by the elected representatives of the island of Praslin to organise a National Event on Praslin and for Praslin. We needed an event that would be completely different and that would be used to position the island of Praslin on the world tourism circuit as we deliver for Praslin a fiesta for all the Praslinois at the same time’.Other complementary activities being looked for the Praslin Fiesta are a Yacht Race, a Big Game Fishing Competition and a triathlon, among other event enhancing programme components.
Praslin is connected to the main island of Mahe by at least 20 daily departures from the international airport by Air Seychelles domestic network, using DHC6 Twin Otter aircraft and by several daily high speed ferry connections from Port Victoria. The island is home to the Seychelles second terrestrial national park, the Valle de Mai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where the rare ‘Coco de Mer’ is found. Also on the island are some world class resorts like the Constance Lemuria Resort which offers guests an 18 hole golf course with some spectacular views across the island and the ocean, and a range of locally owned properties which equally command top rating, some located at the most stunning of beaches.
The islands can be reached every day with one stop air connections from literally every point on the globe via Emirates hub in Dubai, which later this year will be going from 12 weekly flights to daily flights, and by national airline Air Seychelles in conjunction with Etihad’s growing global network via Abu Dhabi. Kenya Airways flies four times a week from Nairobi to Mahe and Ethiopian Airlines will resume flights in October this year. Later this month will Reunion’s Air Austral launch flights, twice a week, from St. Denis’ Roland Garros International Airport to Mahe and Germany’s Condor presently flies once a week but has also expressed their intent to launch a second weekly flight. Mihin Lanka connects the Seychelles twice a week with Colombo, offering wannabe visitors plenty of options of how to reach the archipelago. Seychelles, truly Another World and so much more than just sun and sand!
For more information about Praslin and the archipelago in general, visit www.seychelles.travel.
