Domaine de Val des Près to become cultural tourism, top tourist attraction in Seychelles |06 September 2014

The Domaine de Val des Près located in the Au Cap district is set to be turned into an attractive place for visitors and locals while at the same time preserving and conserving its historical and heritage value.

A re-development and extension project for the village is being carried out by the Seychelles Heritage Foundation in collaboration with its parent ministry, the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, and with the Seychelles Tourism Board.

This is in line with the Seychelles Brand campaign launched by President James Michel in 2010 and the Seychelles Tourism Board’s efforts to diversify attractions for visitors to our shores.

As Tourism and Culture Minister Alain St Ange has previously explained in one of the National Assembly sessions, the aim is to ensure that this popular site is developed into a lively traditional, historical and cultural village.

It is set to have commercially viable and sustainable projects that will provide visitors with core activities to enrich their holiday experience in the context of the cultural tourism programme.  

Following the allocation of land parcels to nine Seychellois entrepreneurs involved mainly in art and craft and other small industry productions, the technical formalities have now been completed. These include signing of lease, utilities and survey works.

Eight of the successful entrepreneurs, except for one have signed their lease agreement with the Seychelles Heritage Foundation and the Ministry of Land Use and Housing and as stipulated in their lease agreement they now have one year to eighteen months to complete their projects.

While waiting for finalisation of the lease agreements, the Seychelles Heritage Foundation organised meetings with the successful entrepreneurs giving them guidelines on the designs of their buildings, colour scheme, height in view of the topography of the land and so forth.
 
The successful entrepreneurs are now working on their plans for planning approval before construction can start.

The selected projects represent a balanced development that preserves the historical and heritage significance of the site whilst providing for additional cultural and heritage attractions and services for visitors and the general public and make the site more visitors’ friendly.

Additionally it will create employment opportunities for residents of Au Cap and nearby districts and also represent a significant investment coming from the private sector into the field of culture.

In the context of the re-development of the Domaine De Val des Près heritage site, the restaurant Vye Marmit was tendered out and the submission of ‘Seylicious’, a company owned by a Chinese and two Seychellois directors, was accepted.
 
The Seychelles Heritage Foundation has signed a lease agreement with the company and the restaurant has undergone extensive renovation on its structure. Presently it remains for some finishing works to be completed.

Once it reopens its doors under its previous name ‘Pomme Cannelles’ the restaurant will offer primarily traditional Creole dishes in a completely new setting for the many visitors coming to the village.

The re-development plan falls well within the mandate of the Seychelles Heritage Foundation aimed at promoting and preserving cultural heritage sites with particular significance to heritage or cultural tourism.

Minister St Ange led a delegation to the site recently to visit the work being done and to meet the kiosks owners, representatives of the 'Seylicious' company and that of the Seychelles Heritage Foundation.

Chief executive of the foundation, Patrick Nanty gave Minister St Ange a tour of the place, and an update on the project and the constraints faced by the cultural tourism village.

The minister also toured the plot of land between the Au Cap day care centre project and the Domaine de Val des Près Estate which was previously a farm. The land should have already been transferred to the Domaine de Val des Près as per government instructions but necessary formalities have yet to be completed.

Contributed