STB’s end-of-year marketing review |29 November 2014

State of business, marketing strategy discussed

The state of business for the year and the marketing strategy and plan for 2015 were discussed during the end-of-year marketing review on Thursday at the Savoy Resort & Spa.

The Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) and representatives of the board’s offices overseas organised the meeting and present were tourism principal secretary Anne Lafortune, STB chief executive Sherin Naiken and the boards overseas representatives for Europe, South Africa, Africa, Americas, China, India, Middle East, Korea and Japan and representatives of airlines like Air Seychelles and Emirates.

Speaking to the press, Ms Naiken said the representatives voiced out their thoughts and opinion on the various markets like those we need to focus on and those we maybe need to relook at or which Seychelles does not need to spend on.

“The good thing is many of these reflections were already being taken into consideration by the STB,” said Ms Naiken.

She noted that even if the trade this year has not performed as the country would have wished, the STB has already relooked at its strategies regarding the marketing procedure next year.

She said markets like France, Germany and China are those with more focus, with China being the fastest growing market and South Africa due to direct flights. The India market which will benefit from direct flights soon and Russia which has the potential to grow within a short period of time, are being given lots of priorities which include above-the-line marketing. Italy, one of the slow markets, will still be given a budget by the STB to help it grow.

She said other markets like the Americas, Africa, South Korea and Japan are just being maintained.

“We will not invest much in them as we want to give more attention to our principal markets,” said Ms Naiken.

And in order to give the important markets the importance and visibility they need, Ms Naiken has launched an appeal to the trade to come onboard and give their support.

Air Seychelles chief executive Manoj Papa said the aim is for local airline to be the best in the Indian Ocean.

He spoke about the successes and challenges of the airline, the significant contributions of Air Seychelles towards the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the profits achieved since partnering with Etihad Airways, the sound business model the airline has, more efficient network, being an award-winning airline and being a performance-based organisation.

One of the challenges is to position Air Seychelles as a credible and commercially sustainable airline in the Indian Ocean, and committed to delivery. The airline will do its utmost to keep its presence and number of seats in any new destination.

“As a little island airline, we have managed to position it as a 4-star airline,” said Mr Papa.

Mr Papa also spoke about his vision for the airline which includes being global and be seen around the world. He enlightened all present on the strategic value of the Air Seychelles/Etihad Airways partnership. Regarding human resources, Mr Papa said Air Seychelles focuses on talent development so that Seychellois can take up major positions in the airline.