100,000 reasons for Seychelles to smile |25 April 2022

After only 111 days, the destination has recorded its 100,000-visitor milestone, five months ahead of the 2021 dates, a high indicator of the successful recovery of the Seychelles tourism industry.

As per the data provided by the Seychelles National Statistics Bureau (NBS), Seychelles hit its 100,000 visitors mark on April 21, 2022.

With figures nearing pre-pandemic arrival numbers, the destination recorded 28,685 visitors in March 2022 ‒ 7,685 more visitors than what was predicted for the month, which is also only 12,527 less than the figures recorded in 2019.

Speaking of the milestone, the director general for destination marketing, Bernadette Willemin said the numbers are very encouraging.

"It is truly a great satisfaction to see the visitor arrival numbers remain on the rise and to hear from our operators and service providers that business is booming again. 2020 and 2021 have been challenging years for our small destination and our local partners, we have invested much effort into reversing the situation. The current numbers indicate that we are on our way to reaching the minimum 182,849 visitors received in 2021 and that is a milestone considering the current economic downturn the world is facing," said Mrs Willemin.

Impacted heavily by the pandemic, Seychelles' recovery strategy was centred around rebuilding visitors’ confidence pushing forward a robust nationwide vaccination campaign for its citizens and residents.

The campaign was reinforced by its safe tourism certification policy through intensive training of tourism industry operators in health and safety measures.

Estimations from Tourism Seychelles show that the destination is anticipating between 36,000 to 76,000 visitors more in 2022.

The top performing markets on the arrival chart since January 2022, remain France, Russia, and Germany.

Contributed