MAURITIUS SAID TO BE FURIOUS OVER SEYCHELLES LANDING THE 57TH UNWTO COMMISSION MEETING COINCIDING WITH 2015 CARNIVAL
(Posted 06th May 2014)
Two usually reliable sources from Port Louis have reported that word from the grapevine inside the MTPA and the Ministry of Tourism in Mauritius tells a story of unparalleled envious fury over the coup landed by the Seychelles last week, when the participation of Alain St. Ange, Minister for Tourism and Culture at the 56th Commission meeting of the UNWTO for Africa in Luanda / Angola ended with an unanimous agreement to hold the next, 57th meeting, in the Seychelles a day prior to the launch of their annual Carnaval de Carnivals. St. Ange, when the decision was announced, immediately invited the tourism ministers from Africa to bring with them their cultural troupes to perform in the 2015 Carnival International de Victoria, which is expected to be the best attended festival ever, considering the added inflow of ministers and their delegations from the African Union member countries. In addition will UNWTO Secretary General Dr. Talib Rifai return to the Seychelles Carnival for a second time in three years as he is expected to be in Victoria to chair the 57th Commission meeting. The Luanda meeting was attended by no less than 20 tourism ministers in addition to which other countries sent in delegations and the appeal of the Seychelles almost guarantees that next year that number will in fact be even larger.
The Mauritius’ tourism powers that be are now said to be even more concerned that their continuous absence from key Vanilla Island events staged not just in the Seychelles but on other island of the group too, might deny them the chance to take over the chair of the organization at the meeting in Madagascar next week after they failed to swing enough votes their way when the Vanilla Island organization ministerial meeting in Victoria two weeks ago failed to agree on that crucial point.
Said one source: ‘The ambiguous stand taken by our country’s tourism bosses towards Vanilla Islands now comes to haunt them. Some say that giving the chair to Mauritius might bring them closer and engage them more but there are more voices suggesting that it might be like planting a 5th column inside the organisation. Truly, only those willing to be unconditional part of Vanilla Islands should take on leadership positions. It can be Reunion, it can be Madagascar, because both support the fundamentals of Vanilla Islands and both are participating in all the main events. Our tourism leadership has failed us and is in fact giving Mauritius a bad name among the Vanilla Island members for being absent, for being seen as obstructionists and for speaking with forked tongues, I think that is the right way to put it in English’.
Harsh sentiments but not the first time such are heard as media visitors from Mauritius to the Seychelles carnival two weeks ago voiced in private similar concerns that the present policy appears to isolate Mauritius to the detriment of their tourism industry. The International Tourism Trade Fair in Antananarivo is taking place in mid-May and a decision of who is taking over from Alain St. Ange as president of the Vanilla Island Organization is expected to be announced in Madagascar when the new president is officially announced. Watch this space for breaking and regular news from the Indian Ocean islands.
