Public decry cost and look of ‘revamped’ tourism logo |09 September 2022
Mrs Willemin (Photo: Joena Meme)
There has been a public outcry over the cost and look of the tourism department’s revamped logo which was officially unveiled on Wednesday this week.
Whether on social media or on the streets, many are talking about the cost of the ‘revamped’ logo which did not entail major changes but which has cost the whopping sum of 30,000 pounds (R450,000).
The director-general for destination marketing, Bernadette Willemin, met with the press yesterday to explain the logic behind. The new revamped logo, which took three and a half months to concretise, was designed by ‘Union’, an advertising company based in Scotland, headed by a Seychellois, at a cost of 30,000 pounds and it was the same company that in 2006 designed the previous logo. The tourism team provided the guidelines and also invited the professionals from Union for a country feel of the desired concept of the logo.
“In our business or in any other businesses, there comes a time where you need to relook at your brand and there is a necessity to modernise it. Our brand has existed since 2006 and it has been 16 years we have been using the logo and our business has evolved and we needed to refresh our brand also. The previous logo was not responding to the current demands from the market.”
Mrs Willemin shared that the previous logo was giving them lots of complication in the marketing of their brand such as the colour palettes and the size of the logo that were used heavily digitally.
“When we refresh the brand we maintain our clients and continue to see the brand relevant. Seychelles is an international brand and it is being sold as a product. We saw it was timely for our department to do it and the two major rationales are the usage of the logo digitally and the colours.”
Was there a tender for this work and why did they go back to the same company? Mrs Willemin stated that the fact the company already knew about our core business, they knew the reasoning behind and they knew how to bring it to another level.
“Bringing a new company would mean that it would cost more as they had to start from scratch and we had three months since the project was on the market. The company is a destination brand guru with international experience. The cost includes all the discussions made before even finalising the logo,” explained Mrs Willemin.
“There was no tender but the Tourism department went through the right process and went through a direct bidding. They presented the project and received the necessary approval before starting the work. Procurement also approved the project,” stated Mrs Willemin.
As to whether the tourism board had made any attempt to find if the task could be done locally, Mrs Willemin stated the reason why they went back to the same firm is because they created that logo.
“If we go for a rebranding of course there will be a tender process but this time we were only revamping something already there. I am not underestimating our local people and our department works a lot with local suppliers and we will keep working with them. There comes a point in time also that we need foreign expertise, it is not the work of a graphic artist only but there is a whole conceptualisation behind it.”
What was the ‘rush’ about? Mrs Willemin clarified that there was a necessity to revamp the brand as they intensify their digital activities. “We had to re-tweak the logo so that we could get the visibility internationally. In our joint-partnership, we are also co-branding and it is not in our advantage that we are losing visibility compared to other partners.
How is the tourism department responding to the backlash from the public? “We agree that not everyone will espouse this concept and we invite them to come and talk to us if they need clarification on how and why it was done that way. Competition is back and Seychelles cannot stay behind and this is the ways and means we keep telling people we are present,” concluded Mrs Willemin.
Vidya Gappy