Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) mid-year marketing meeting |04 July 2017
Visitor arrivals continue to show steady increase
The Seychelles Tourism Board (STB), stakeholders and partners of the trade, met at Ephelia Resort & Spa, Port Launay yesterday morning for their mid-year marketing meeting.
This meeting is usually held at year end, but this time members of the trade requested for it to be held in the first half of the year as they seek to have better partnerships and synergies focused in marketing our destination and individual products.
The meeting was aimed at relooking the STB’s marketing strategies by taking stock of the tourism trend engaging on various issues pertaining to specific markets; at what juncture the trade is now and for both the government and private sectors in the trade to get together to discuss activities remaining for the year 2017 on the various markets. It was also for the trade to express what they want and to find the best way forward.
The meeting started with both STB and the tourism department giving a brief review of some main movements happening in the tourism sector in Seychelles. For example visitor arrivals to Seychelles for the first half of this year continues to show a steady increase of 22% over last year with Germany being the number one source market followed by France though a slight decline has been recorded from this country. United Arab Emirates in the Middle East remains the number one market outside Europe, with that region expecting to be number one for outbound visitors in the world and Seychelles is strategically placed to benefit from that. Despite Brexit, the number of visitors from the United Kingdom travelling to Seychelles continues to increase with a total of 8,809 recorded so far. By the end of the year the country is expected to record a total of 350,000 to 360,000 visitors. But as the trade grows, Seychelles must ensure the growth does not become a burden.
Present were Maurice Loustau-Lalanne, Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine; Sherin Francis, chief executive (CEO) of STB and Jennifer Sinon, deputy CEO and representatives of private sectors notably David Savy and John Stravens; the managers and marketing managers of the different STB offices overseas and trade partners.
The event also saw the launch of the new STB Corporate website, www.seychellestourismboard.travel. This was done by Mr Loustau-Lalanne, Mrs Francis and web administrator Vahid Jacob, director, digital marketing. It is different from the existing site because the new one provides any information or activities one may require from STB like their plan, trade fairs they are participating in, the various road shows. For example instead of calling the marketing department seeking information on events happing in any overseas offices, the new website can answer all your queries.
In his opening address, Minister Loustau-Lalanne mentioned some main points that have affected tourism between the years 2015-2016 with the latter year continuing to set new records in terms of numbers of visitors with 303,000 visitors. Cruise tourism returned to our shores after a marked reduction in piracy activities in our region with a remarkable increase from 19,000 to 29,000 cruise ship passengers recorded. Bed occupancy remained at 60% nationally with Mahé doing much better with 84% as compared to La Digue 75% and Praslin 68%. He also referred to the re-launching of marketing strategy for China with expected flights from two cities, thanks to trade partners while commending such pro-activeness.
He made reference to four ‘Ps”, the four pillars of creating and selling Seychelles incorporated – product, price, place and promotion -- while suggesting a fifth one – people, with the aim of getting more Seychellois involved in the trade.
Regarding the result of a visitor survey conducted by the National Statistics Bureau on online booking that many visitors prefer, Mr Loustau-Lalanne said:
“We need to develop new strategies to capture our shares of doing business online and keeping our earned revenue in our economy. This is sustainable tourism. The money we earn here, stays here,” he said.
The survey also revealed the most popular attraction which is the marine and terrestrial parks; most important activity is snorkeling; local spendings are in meals at hotels and restaurants and returned visitors only 17%, something the minister said we also need to improve.
“As we diversify our markets, our products and improve on the existing services we offer, let us always remember that we need to bring the right clientele and give them all a good time here. But we need to do that faster, much faster.”
Mrs Francis went through the statistics of the various markets; commended the hard work of the STB overseas representatives; where improvements need to be made while cautioning against a steep increase in tourist arrivals if we are ready to deal with such.
“We might not have it completely right, but our teams work really, really hard to promote our destination,” she said.
