Promoting cultural tourism |24 October 2016

Stakeholders and entrepreneurs met to discuss the place of culture and heritage in entrepreneurship and explore the concepts of cultural tourism.

This was through a special forum based on the commercialisation of our culture and heritage to coincide with this year’s Festival Kreol.

The workshop was held at the Guy Morel Institute on Friday.

The meeting was also aimed at promoting value added tourism as the future of the tourism industry in Seychelles and to showcase an example of how culture and heritage can be commercialised.

The keynote speaker, Emmanuel D’Offay, did a presentation on culture and heritage followed by a presentation from a heritage and culture entrepreneur Katrina Souffe, the founder and manager of the Heritage and Cultural Education Services (HCES), and her colleagues Hazel Dupres and Amäel Payet.

HCES is a non-governmental service which aims at promoting the importance of Seychelles heritage and its cultural aspects. 

“The importance of this workshop was to raise awareness about heritage and cultural tourism in Seychelles and how it can be commercialised in different aspects like giving the tourists who visit Seychelles another taste of our tradition in a more practical way,” she said.

An example where the tourists get to experience and learn our culture is through learning how to prepare a traditional dish.

“They get the chance to prepare the dish guided by an elderly who can supervise the correct use of ingredients and to make the preparations,” she said.

Other examples which her service provides to clients include learning traditional dances and basic Creole language.

Ms Souffe added that most of HCES activities are conducted in collaboration with local artists.

“This gives the artist a chance to promote their work and they are more visible to clients and provides a motivational aspect to the artist to continue their business later on,” she said.