SEYCHELLES AND CHINA SET FOR CLOSER COOPERATION IN LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMER TRAINING
(Posted 03rd October 2016)
Anne Lafortune, the Principal Secretary for Tourism in Seychelles met Zheng Nengbo, President of the Zhoushan Tourism and Health College to discuss potential avenues of cooperation in the tourism and education sectors.
Both Mrs. Lafortune and Mr. Zheng agreed that through the sharing of best practices, student and lecturer exchanges will promote the mutual ties of friendship and people to people relations between Seychelles and China.
Mrs. Lafortune further indicated that with the increase of Chinese visitors travelling to Seychelles, the need to further engage with Chinese institutes in the field of tourism will help the relevant bodies and businesses to better understand the Chinese market.
‘This will ensure that our Chinese visitors get the best out of their holidays whilst in the Seychelles‘ said PS Anne Lafortune of the Seychelles.
A delegation from the Zhoushan Tourism and Health College headed by Mr. Zheng is now expected to conduct a fact finding mission to Seychelles later this year to meet with different local authorities in order to further explore how the two sides can expand the discussed ties of cooperation.
The Zhoushan Tourism and Health College offers training in the field of tourism and health preservation techniques of Chinese medicine. The courses offered by the Academy related to tourism includes , among others, Hospitality Management, Tourism Management (tourism guide service and management, coastal recreational tourism) and Accounting. The population of Zhoushan is just over one million people and consists solely of islands making it an archipelago.
The meeting took place in Zhoushan, China and was attended by H.E. Vivianne Fock Tave, Ambassador of Seychelles to the People’s Republic of China, Jean-Luc Lai-Lam, the Seychelles Tourism Board’s Manager in China and Alex Henderson, Third Secretary in the Seychelles Embassy in Beijing.
The Seychelles Tourism Academy is already cooperating closely with a hotel and tourism training institution in Shanghai which has benefitted from both lecturer and student exchanges, all aimed to prepare Seychelles’ tourism businesses and their staff better for what Chinese tourists expect when on vacation.
For more details on Destination Seychelles click on www.seychelles.travel
