Seychelles carnival makes a splash in European magazine |23 May 2015

Success is easy to take for granted, but the tireless efforts by the team at the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) to keep Seychelles visible in the four corners of the world is no easy feat at all.

 One of their success stories in achieving visibility for the Seychelles islands and in so doing its tourism industry is the island's annual Carnaval International de Victoria.

With over one hundred press houses having travelled to Seychelles to cover this year’s carnival held from April 24-26 the coverage coming out is no less than amazing.

BBC television has already started to air its footage on the different stories filmed as they were in Seychelles.

Articles in most major tourism source markets for Seychelles have started appearing with positive articles falling in Israel, the Middle East, Reunion, Mauritius, the USA, the UK, France, South Africa.

Today it was the popular and very respected tourism magazine in Turkey that has come out with a dedicated full colour front cover on the Seychelles carnival. Suat Tore is the editor and editor in chief of the S & M Publications Ltd, the publishers of the 'Mee Turkey Alternative Tourism & MICE Magazine' that has hit the news stands of Europe. S&M Publication Ltd. is one of the leading travel publication companies in Turkey. It has three periodical travel magazines -- New Focus Travel Magazine, MeeTurkey Incentive Magazine, and Arab &Turkish Travel Magazine. Moreover, it has four periodical online travel news service.

Both Alain St Ange, the Minister for Tourism and Culture and Sherin Naiken, the chief executive of the STB said they are happy to see their efforts in staging the biggest ever cultural event in Seychelles bring real visibility for the islands and all the countries who continue to see this ‘Carnival of Carnivals’ as a tourism trade fair with a difference.

"We sold Seychelles for years pushing our sun, sea and sand. We invited press to write about these unique selling points for a beach holiday, but we have realised since a few years now that the press had all come and done this and were just not interested in repeat stories to replay the same scratched records as they put it themselves. We need to be proactive and far sighted even when some did not understand that their own success depended on Seychelles making a giant leap forward to place its culture at the heart of its tourism development. When we place our culture at the centre of our tourism development we were in fact placing our people at the centre of the continued development of our country,” said Minister St Ange.

Culture is still not something everyone appreciates which was why the UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organisation) and Unesco organised a tourism through culture in Cambodia earlier this year.

 The Seychelles tourism trade individually have come out and mostly congratulated the efforts of their tourism board. Many hotels, resorts and tourism companies took part with carnival floats and have given a helping hand to the carnival either financially or by hosting press and officials in Seychelles for the event.   

"Appreciating culture is a very patriotic thing. Culture is power and following a cultural strategy in one's tourism industry is success for the long term," Minister St Ange said.

Reunion Island was this year again the partner country with Seychelles for the organisation of the carnival and Didier Robert, the President of the Regional Council of Reunion, was personally in Seychelles as head of his island's delegation. Xavier-Luc Duval, the deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius was the guest of honour at this year's event which also saw the presence of the King of the Ashanti, the Royal Princess of Swaziland, tourism ministers from South Africa, Côte D'Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia; culture minister from Swaziland and heads of tourism from many more countries.

Seychelles has always said that it organises the event to spread the word of peace and harmony using culture as the base with everyone taking part and where political affiliation, religious beliefs and colour of the skin play no difference.

"This event is the biggest single event organised in Seychelles. well over half of the island's population come out to be seen and to be supporting the event that also spreads in Seychelles the spirit of harmony immaterial of political affiliation, religious beliefs and colour of the skin" said Minister St Ange.

Contributed