Middle East tourism market ‘full of potential for Seychelles’ |04 April 2009

This was confirmed at a series of meetings recently when new cooperation with Emirates Airline was discussed.

Talks also confirmed that the Middle East has not been badly affected in terms of outbound travel and will continue to produce positive results.

Alain St Ange, the new director for tourism marketing, led a Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) delegation at the meetings with top officials of the Dubai airline, at which they discussed a new way forward to bring about a win-win situation for all parties involved.

The STB presented a cooperation proposal based on Seychelles’ new strategic plans and also heard from the airline of its own plans and ambitions for the forthcoming period.

Talks were held with Salem Obaidalla, Emirates’ senior vice-president for commercial operations, West Asia, Indian Ocean and Africa, and Majid Al Mualla, who is about to take over that post.

Mr St Ange said after the meeting he was encouraged by Emirates’ positive move to increase market share to Seychelles by further developing the route out of the Dubai hub.

This new proposal, he added, would provide a “win-win situation for Seychelles, Emirates Airline and for Dubai”.

The STB has been seeking further support from key partners, and Mr St Ange said he would be returning to Seychelles satisfied and happy with the commitment received from Emirates and from the different trade partners he met.

These included John Felix, senior vice-president of Emirates Holidays, and Nick Sheppard, regional head of leisure and non-air of Dnata Travel Services.

Describing his Middle East trip as a success, Mr St Ange said they went there with a clear mission to further develop and consolidate Seychelles as a tourism destination for the Middle East and would leave “happy knowing that the foundations for this have been established”.

He was also pleased and reassured that while they were in Dubai a Seychelles-based tour operator was actively working through the region on a sales mission and seeing positive results translating into immediate bookings.

“This confirms there is much business to be taken but it requires consistent stimulation of the market and regular visits from the trade,” he said.

Seychelles’ Dubai office has recently launched a major promotion with Atlantis Travel, a Seychelles tour operator, and hotel partners to target a database of 20,000 high-end clients, including 8,000 VIPs, many of whom have previously booked holidays here. This has already resulted in a large number of positive enquiries.

Mr St Ange was accompanied at the meetings by Julie Muirhead of Mohamed Al Geziry Consultancy, Seychelles’ representative in the Middle East, and Blaisila Hoffman, the STB’s senior marketing manager.