Eden aquarium set to be a major attraction |25 July 2014

An attractive and sophisticated tropical marine aquarium being built at Eden Plaza on Eden Island is expected to start welcoming visitors soon.

Meanwhile local financial institutions are being urged to support investments in such facilities designed to encourage tourists to the islands to spend more, and at the same time provide a recreational and educational attraction for Seychellois as a whole.

“Local financial institutions have a duty to encourage such projects especially when the promoter is a Seychellois,” the Minister for Tourism and Culture Alain St Ange has said.

“Such facilities,” he said, “will help to increase the yield we get from the tourism sector.”
Minister St Ange made this appeal after visiting the aquarium project scheduled to open to the public in the third quarter of 2014.

The minister was accompanied on his visit by the principal secretary for tourism Anne Lafortune, the chief executive of the Seychelles Tourism Board Sherin Naiken and director for international cooperation in the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Miera Savy.

Minister St Ange and his delegation had the opportunity to meet the promoter of the aquarium, Charles Savy, who has designed and built the attraction.

Discussions were centred on the challenges facing such new developments seen as tourism-related projects, especially with regard to access to finance.

“There is a need for us to back such tourism-supporting projects like this one, and we must encourage our local banks to support such initiatives as they are a plus to our tourism industry,” Minister St Ange said.

The setting up of this aquarium follows the call made by Minister St Ange and recommendations by the International Monetary Fund to create value-added products for visitors to our shores to enjoy and at which they can spend their holiday dollars.

Eden Aquarium is 100% Seychellois designed and built, making it a unique attraction in the country.
The Eden Aquarium is set to develop as part of the tourism industry infrastructure and become a major attraction not only for tourists but also for the locals and residents alike.

Once operational, the Eden Aquarium will start up an educational programme for school children aimed at making them aware on the importance of looking after our environment as a whole and to learn to enjoy it as well. This will be done through various activities that will be organised by the team at the aquarium.
Mr Savy, who has spent almost two years building this attractive aquarium, is a respected veteran of the underwater world in Seychelles who has dived in Seychelles for more than 35 years.

For the past eighteen years he has successfully created and run his own live-aboard dive charter operation, King Bambo Charters. Mr Savy holds a BSC in Mechanical Engineering, with additional two and half year research in Applied Mechanics from the Department of Computational & Applied Mechanics of the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

In the designing and building of this aquarium, Mr Savy was helped by his Seychellois King Bambo Charters team. They were initially assisted by contractors from Vijay Construction and Dr David Rowat of the Marine Conservation Society of Seychelles.

This project is seen as a powerful example of indigenous, resourcefulness, technical innovation and expertise, know-how and determination.

Pricing for entry into the aquarium will allow residents to pay a very affordable one-off annual fee which will allow them in as many times as they wish over the year of subscription.

As for visitors to Seychelles, pricing for entry will allow them multiple access into the aquarium over a period of one month.

For such tourism-related developments to take place, financial institutions need to ease access to funding for such businesses because if local innovations are not encouraged, this can significantly discourage the development of tourism initiatives such as the Eden aquarium project.