Seychelles welcomes record-breaking number of visitors from Russia |29 September 2023

By Vidya Gappy

Seychelles has so far this year welcomed a record-breaking number of visitors from Russia – 27,000 plus. This was announced by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Sylvestre Radegonde, during the launch of the Digital Tourism Fair yesterday at the International Conference Centre Seychelles (ICCS).

“As I stand before you today, statistics published by the National Bureau of Statistics paint a promising picture. We have welcomed over 242,000 visitors so far, representing a 5% increase over the same period last year. This performance is in line with our predictions for the industry's growth for this year. These predictions took into account the challenging circumstances in Western Europe, which made it difficult to regain our pre-pandemic market share. While we acknowledged these difficulties, we recognised the need to diversify our markets. One such market was Russia, and it is remarkable to see that it has exceeded 27,000 visitors – a historic record for this market. The growth in Russian tourists is expected to continue, with additional flight frequencies by Aeroflot planned for the end of October this year,” Minister Radegonde noted.

He also spoke about how Russia supports all categories of our properties, from the largest to the smallest. It is one such market that ensures consistent occupancy across. In fact, the recent analysis of Aeroflot flights for August 2023 alone shows that 45% of guests from this airline during that month were staying in larger properties while 39% were in self-catering establishments.

“The challenges we face in the markets, especially our traditional ones, will not become any easier, especially during times like this year when we lost key air connectivity to our main European source markets,” concluded Minister Radegonde.