New tourism minister to be sworn in today |30 December 2016

Ambassador Maurice Loustau-Lalanne will be sworn in today as the new Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine.

Mr Loustau-Lalanne’s appointment by President Danny Faure follows the resignation of his predecessor, Alain St Ange, who has announced that he will be submitting his application for the post of secretary general of the World Tourism Organisation.

Ambassador Loustau-Lalanne’s appointment follows his approval by the National Assembly yesterday, in the post of minister. President Faure has consequently expressed his appreciation of the support of the members of the National Assembly.

During his interaction with the representatives of the people, Ambassador Loustau-Lalanne retraced his career in the public sector, where he started as an air traffic controller. He became director general of the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority in 1981 and in 1982 was among the founding members of the national airline Air Seychelles, which then came into existence in 1983. He has consequently served as principal secretary or secretary of state in various ministries such as that of Environment, Tourism, Foreign Affairs and Health.

Both the leader of government business Charles Decommarmond and leader of the opposition Wavel Ramkalawan had words of praise for Minister Loustau- Lalanne as a proven environmentalist, diplomat and tourism as well as civil aviation specialist.

The new minister has highlighted three areas which he will treat as priorities in his new position. These are obtaining more yield from the 300,000 tourists visiting Seychelles, improving the tourism product in its totality and maintaining security and stability which he says is the primary condition for a profitable tourism industry.