Seychelles among favourite island destinations for the Chinese |23 October 2015

Seychelles was among the island states that won the ‘2015 Chinese Citizens Favourite Island Destination’ at the International Island Tourism Conference that was held in the island city of Zhoushan in the province of Zhejiang China.

The award was collected by the principal secretary for tourism Anne Lafortune who was in China to attend the conference.

The three-day annual conference on ‘Interconnecting the marine silk road, sharing the island development’ was the first ever International Islands Tourism Conference (IITC) and it highlighted the importance of island tourism development, product exploration, regional cooperation, brand building and ecological protection.

A number of tourism destinations including Seychelles, the Maldives, Indonesia, Greece, Australia, United States, the Vanilla Islands Association, the Pacific Asia Travel Association and the World Tourism Organisation were among the 25 island countries, regions and 30 island cities, international tour operators, cruise liners, airlines, resort groups, tourism investors and tourism research institute that attended the conference which aims to provide visibility to island destinations. Over 1,000 delegates were present at the conference.

Apart from Mrs Lafortune, Seychelles was also represented by Seychelles’ ambassador accredited to China Vivianne Fock-Tave and Jean-Luc Lai Lam, the Seychelles Tourism Board’s manager in China.

Mrs Lafortune also delivered a presentation on the successes of Seychelles as an island destination and the achievements made in increasing the number of Chinese visitors to the island.

She was also a member of the panel discussion together with representatives from other island states.

“The conference not only provided us with a platform to further promote our beautiful islands to a wider audience of key decision makers in China and the world, but also reinforced our position as one of the best island destinations. This was more than apparent when Seychelles was among the winners for the 2015 Chinese Citizens Favourite Island Tourism Destination in the world,” said Mrs Lafortune.

Topics discussed at this important conference were the significance of island tourism development for each island states and the different trends in global island tourism development.

The conference ended with strategies and recommendations that each country should consider adopting for sustainable development of their respective island tourism.

Next year the conference is expected to be held at the same place in Zhoushan, China but it was proposed that island state should take turn to host the conference in order to gain more visibility and learn from each other’s best practices.

Miss Fock-Tave also addressed the conference whereby she focused on investment in our tourism industry.