Inter-ministerial meeting focuses on product, pricing, profitability |13 September 2014

The third inter-ministerial task force meeting chaired by Vice-President Danny Faure focused on the three Ps of the tourism industry – product, pricing and profitability.

Yesterday’s meeting held at the ex-National Assembly at the National Library was attended by ministers and partners of the tourism industry.

The meeting also came out with resolutions that are to be brought to the Cabinet. Among those is the need to develop an air transport policy which is very clear and well-defined so that an airline company or a tour operator will be well aware of what is expected from them.

The delegates also went through last month’s minutes of meeting and members of technical committees on Anse Source d’Argent, Ministry of Land Use and Habitat (MLUH) and Ministry of Finance, Trade and Industry submitted their reports, proposals and solutions.

Speaking to the press, Tourism and Culture Minister Alain St Ange said the third meeting touched on the three Ps of tourism.
“Discussions about the three Ps were very interesting. To make the trade profitable we have to look at airlines. Why what we have are not working? And why today we only have hubs and no airlines that come directly from our core market. So these issues were discussed at length and the meeting came out with clear resolutions which the Vice-President will bring to the Cabinet next week,” Minister St Age said, adding that this clearly indicates that discussions are followed by action.

Regarding the product of the tourism trade, the minister said it is Seychelles itself and not the hotels and guesthouses.
“Seychelles begins with us Seychellois. The welcome we give the tourists, the cleanliness of our country, the infrastructure we have. And it is Seychelles that we sell to visitors and not a hotel,” said the minister.

He also spoke about targeted marketing which concerns the Seychelles Tourism Board, saying we need to know where to focus when we have a difficulty and when our principal core market suffers from economic difficulties.

In relation to mutual agreement between the ministry and the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry, it was agreed that we bring into the country important tourism people. As from Monday, the major French tour operators will be in Seychelles to inform the trade what they believe are the difficulties they are encountering to sell Seychelles overseas and the country will act on the recommendations.

Another significant issue raised during the task force meeting is that the government has agreed to re-look into the relevance of the tourist offices overseas, conduct an assessment on their output to see if it is necessary to have them.

“This is about us refocusing ourselves. It is for us to see with a new dynamism where we are and how we will tackle the issue,” said the minister.

Minister St Ange also informed the press that other issues like licensed and unlicensed taxi operators, renovated and new signs at beaches and hotels, commotion at the Praslin jetty were discussed during yesterday’s meeting


Freddy Karkaria, the chairman of the Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association, expressed his appreciation that both the government and the private sector have agreed that we have a problem in the tourism trade and the problem is national.

He stressed the need for all of us to make the industry flourish and not survive. He then elaborated more on the three Ps.

“Product is Seychelles itself and these are its natural beauty, its fauna and flora, its people, its music, its dances, its culture, its food, its history. And it is around these things that we will have hotels, ships or boats. These are what we Seychelles have that make us unique,” he said.

“When we look at our products and selling them, you need to have a price that people are ready to pay for but the people should also know what the products are. So you have to do it in a way that allows profitability. If not it’s your products that will be affected.

In the tourism industry and any service industry, the moment you start cutting cost it ends up in the product being affected.

As for air transport, Mr Karkaria said it cannot stand on its own without a link to the tourism industry. He added that an air transport policy should be drafted in conjunction with the tourism policy.

Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Marco Francis said product, pricing and profitability are all about getting a tourist to keep returning after having visited Seychelles.