YEAR ON YEAR COMPARISON PUTS TOURISM ARRIVALS FOR 2016 UP BY 10 PERCENT
(Posted 15th September 2016)
Vanilla Islands organization founder member Seychelles has benefitted from additional high profile visibility this year, supported by a number of festivals which drew in non traditional tourists but also an increase in cruise ship calls on Port Victoria.
In 2015 did the Seychelles record a nearly 20 percent increase in visitor arrivals compared to 2014, ending the year with 276.233 arrivals and 2016 looks almost as good.
Latest figures speak of an almost 10 percent overall rise in arrivals which as of last weekend stood at 202.235 visitors, compared with 2015 when over the same period 184.508 arrivals were counted.
‘We are confident that the start of Turkish Airlines flights and later this year of daily flights by Qatar Airways from Doha will further boost our tourism industry. The expansion of the Air Seychelles network to China and adding more flights to key destinations like Mumbai has also boosted the number of visitors coming to Seychelles. The elections went without problems so we are confident that we can reach a double digit growth this year again. It affirms that our marketing strategy is working for the industry. Do we have challenges? Of course, every destination has challenges, but we in Seychelles have a very positive cooperation between private and public sector, proacative and engaged. This more than anything else has paid off for us. We have reached a stage where we have a moratorium on the development of large resorts and a study on our overall carrying capacity for tourists is coming out soon. We need to remain sustainable, above everything else, and we need to continue to protect our environment to maintain our global appeal‘ said a regular source when passing the lastest arrival data which were sourced from government statistics.
Additional information about Destination Seychelles can be accessed via www.seychelles.travel and the next major event will be the Festival Kreol in the second half of October.
