STB uses summer break to entice more visitors from the booming German market |16 September 2017
With Germany still leading the way as the top tourism market for Seychelles, the island nation’s tourism board remains busy at work to further grow the numbers from that market in 2017.
While summer means vacation for most people in Europe, this has not been the case for the Seychelles Tourism Board’s (STB) office in Frankfurt.
Promotional efforts have been targeting travel agents and potential travellers who were still at home and maybe planning their winter vacation, as the staggered holiday schedule across the sixteen German states means not everybody gets to travel at the same time.
One of the main events was a Seychelles themed soirée that brought together some 200 guests at AMICI -- a famous VIP restaurant in Stuttgart. Artists José Charles, José Thelermont and Alain Melanie were specially flown to Germany to provide live entertainment at the event. They were accompanied by STB's senior executives Natacha Servina and Stephanie Lablache.
The event ended with a raffle draw and the top prize up for grabs was a Seychelles vacation for two, co-sponsored by Condor for the flights and Hilton Seychelles for accommodation -- 4 nights at Hilton Seychelles Labriz Resort & Spa and 3 nights at Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort & Spa. Other companies including Takamaka Rum Distillery, Seyvillas, Acqua di Parma, Bang & Olufsen, von Hofen Chronometrie & Schmuck and others also sponsored some generous prizes.
The STB's regional manager for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Edith Hunzinger, said she was extremely pleased with the interest displayed by the guests and the outcome.
“On top of everything else, four couples decided that evening to move their planned wedding from Germany to the Seychelles, and a group of twenty yachtsmen booked a sailing holiday in the Seychelles for October,” said Ms Hunzinger.
“Next year, we will repeat this event on an even larger scale and include Creole food, too. And we would like to take this to other cities as well. This was only the beginning, there is certainly more to come,” she added.
The regional office in Frankfurt has continued with its promotional activities during the month of August with a Business 2 Consumer Sailing event in partnership with Jura Reisen, which took place in Nuremberg, Germany on August 15.
A total of eleven workshops and roadshow events seeing the participation of over 800 agencies were conducted across six German states -- Frankfurt, Mannheim, Saarbrücken, Berlin, Hanover and Nuremberg as well as three French-speaking Swiss cantons -- Lausanne, Geneva and Neuchâtel. The roadshows and workshops were organised with the support of three tour operator partners -- Thomas Cook, FTI and TUI Suisse.
The STB is expecting the tourism numbers from Germany and other German-speaking markets to continue performing well. In spite of the suspension of twice-weekly flights to Düsseldorf by Air Seychelles as of September 10, the region will be welcoming new air connectivity as from next month.
Austria is one market that will be getting an additional boost with Austria’s largest carrier -- Austrian Airlines -- getting ready to launch nonstop flights to the Indian Ocean archipelago next month. Using a Boeing 767, Austrian Airlines will start its once-weekly flight to Seychelles on October 25. The flight will leave Vienna every Wednesday and return every Thursday.
The Seychelles route is also served by German leisure airline, Condor, which will again be operating a second weekly flight to the island nation when its winter schedule begins as from November 7, 2017.
Visitor arrivals from Germany, Switzerland and Austria at the end of July stood at 38,278 which represents 19 percent of the total visitors that have disembarked in Seychelles during the first seven months of the year 2017 and as many as the numbers from the second and third largest markets -- France and the UAE -- added together.
The arrival figures from the three German-speaking markets collectively, from January to July this year, are also 25 percent above last year’s figures for the same period with Germany alone boasting a 33 percent increase.
Germany has firmly asserted its position as the Seychelles’ main market in 2017 since June, overtaking its closest contender France, a feat that was last achieved in 2014.