SEYCHELLES MAKES HISTORY IN JULY
The Seychelles are looking forward to a series of meetings which at the start of July will come thick and fast and underscore why the archipelago is the darling of the global travel and tourism media and increasingly a choice place for bringing political and professional gatherings to the tropical Creole island paradise.
The International Council of Tourism Partners, launched with some fanfare at the World Travel Market in November last year in London, will hold its first general meeting in Victoria in early July and will both take stock as well as develop a vision for the way forward. Seychelles minister for tourism and culture, Alain St. Ange, is the Vice President of ICTP and will be the official host for the daylong meeting.
The ICTP will be headquartered at the La Meridien Barbarons Resort which to their credit has made complimentary accommodation available to travel and tourism journalists making their way to the archipelago, to cover the ICTP event and the three other major meetings taking place subsequently. It will be nice to return there after a brief visit in March and a stay last year which is still fondly remembered.
Routes Africa, with a record attendance never before accomplished for their African region, will meet from 08th to the 10th of July, aimed to discuss airline route developments for the entire continent of Africa but also with special relevance to connecting the Vanilla Islands of the Indian Ocean better, namely La Reunion, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mayotte, the Comoros and Seychelles. It is felt that a lack of enough inter island flights is a setback to promote inter island travel for the benefit of trade and tourism.
This is of particular relevance as the Vanilla Islands group will hold its own general meeting with ministers responsible for tourism and their tourist board chairpersons or CEOs in tow, to agree on a firm agenda how to set up a calendar of events between them in which the other partners can participate in and to avoid the fall out of a few weeks ago when Mauritius was seen as doing a copy and paste job on the Carnival International de Victoria, later then however defused when MTPAs chair Robert Devaux brought the media stampede to a halt after he made very conciliatory and reflective remarks last week during a visit to the Seychelles.
The fourth meeting will then be of the SADC tourism ministers, who will gather in Victoria for their RETOSA Board Meeting, again allowing for the development of mutually agreed targets in tourism cooperation between SADC member countries. A series of key events in the Seychelles coming up and reporting as usual live from where the action will take place for the benefit of our readers.
The archipelago is for 2012 looking at establishing another visitors record and is presently well on course to do so after the initial 5 months of the year show sustained growth in arrivals. Staying it the media limelight, as the hosting of these four events will make sure it will, the archipelago can only benefit from it, as will surely also the Vanilla Islands partners. Seychelles, Truly Another World see you there in a few
