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UNWTO, Unesco World Conference in Cambodia discuss ‘Living Cultures and Creative Industries’ |14 February 2015



One of the key sessions at the recent UNWTO and Unesco World Conference in Cambodia was one about ‘Living Cultures and Creative Industries’.
This key session was moderated by Jordi Tresseras, the director at the Laboratory of Heritage Cultural Tourism and Creativity (LABPACT), University of Barcelona in Spain.

The panel of delegates for this open forum discussion were: Alain St Ange, Seychelles’ Minister for Tourism an Culture; Amareswar Galla, the executive director at the International Institute for the Inclusive Museum of Denmark; Hansjurgen Schmotzer, the projects director for Creative Austria; Helena Egan, the director for Industry Relations at Trip Advisor in the UK; Jaesung Rhee, the executive vice-president for International Tourism at Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) of the Republic of Korea and Xu Jing, the regional director for Asia and the Pacific at the UNWTO.

The tabled discussion points stated that “tourism is about experiencing the world and its living cultures. Creative Industries such as music, cinema, crafts, architecture or design, play an increasing role in creating a unique visitor experience, while tourism can foster innovation and the exchange of experiences that grow the creative industries and provide socio-economic benefits to local communities”.

Before the open debate Minister St Ange was the first to take the floor and he spoke about the Seychelles experience, stating that for the Seychelles, tourism remains the pillar of its economy. “Seychelles, with its 90,000 inhabitants today has a Ministry of Tourism and Culture that ensures that the islands’ culture sits firmly at the centre of the tourism development of the islands,” said Minister St Ange before adding that: “Through the department of culture in that ministry we have developed a comprehensive creative industry policy. This is the framework that is implemented to provide the resources necessary to support artists and to expand the island's creative industry. To bring culture and to place it at the centre of development of the Seychelles tourism industry, we embarked on developing events and are creating an agency called CINEA (the Creative Industry and National Events Agency) that will enable Seychellois and visitors to the islands alike to experience the Seychelles authenticity through appreciating creative and performing artists,” Minister St Ange said.

The minister went on to say that the creative industry was the avenue to develop community based tourism and that the island's national events opened up the potential and visibility of what Seychelles has culturally.

“Through this approach we put into place our Cultural District Award Scheme thus taking tourism to grassroots level through the cultural assets we have. To achieve such a drive for Seychelles we appealed to the Seychellois to work with us to claim back our tourism industry,” the minister said before adding: “But what is culture? For Seychelles it is the base of our tourism industry. Culture is what every country has that is branded with for each and every one of us by our very own DNA. Because when you say culture you say people, our people. No one, no country has the right to be ashamed of its culture, because this would mean being ashamed of its people. But today as we go out to protect our culture we are realistic that no island can be an island on to itself. So we go out and cooperate regionally to help create a new tourism region. We are part and parcel of the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands, the East3Route that brings together KwaZulu Natal of South Africa, the Kingdom of Swaziland, Mozambique and the Seychelles, the Indian Ocean Commission among other bodies,” Minister St Ange said, adding that “through our department of culture our heritage section guards what we have and our monuments board protects what is considered national assets”.

The minister then recalled what he said at an earlier session of the conference when he appealed to Unesco to work with countries of the world to help protect assets of national and international values.

"Yesterday I appealed to Unesco to understand us. In Seychelles we have our Venn's Town at Mission Lodge which is an important tangible asset of ours and we have our moutya dance through its tam tam drums that remains one of our popular intangible assets,” the minister said, before explaining these assets in great details.

"Such assets are important not only to us, but also to the world at large. One of the stated assets reflects the macabre part of our history, yes, but Africa and Europe both find themselves in this historical site of Seychelles,” Minister St Ange said.

On tourism, the minister said: “Tourism is fragile, this we all know. This people's industry is volatile and is impacted by the slightest adversity. Today our main source market is Europe. But when their economy gets a sneeze, we immediately catch a bad flu accompanied by a severe fever. So fighting to remain visible always is important and which is why we have entered the world of events to put our culture as a key USP (unique selling point) for our marketing campaign,” said Minister St Ange.

The minister was accompanied to this UNWTO and Unesco World Conference by Benjamine Rose, his principal secretary for culture.

 

 

 

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