Trip impresses Thompsons Holidays’ travel agents |05 April 2012

Their fully-packed six-day itinerary allowed them to tour various tourism establishments.
It ended with a fun-filled, exotic Creole gala evening.

The Seychelles Creole gala dinner for the agents, who arrived in Seychelles on Saturday March 17 and left on Thursday March 22, was organised by the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB).
 
Present for the evening were the Minister for Tourism and Culture Alain St Ange, along with  culture principal secretary Benjamine Rose and the minister’s special adviser for culture,  Raymonde Onezime, as well as STB chief executive Elsia Grandcourt and other representatives of the country’s tourism board.

Also present were representatives of Select-Seychelles, the Destination Management Company responsible for organising the group’s familiarisation trip to Seychelles.

The gala dinner, which had the travel agents discovering the Seychellois traditional music and dances, as well as the local cuisine, took place at the popular Chez Batista restaurant on the last evening of their stay here.

The evening started with a spectacular demonstration of the traditional moutya dance with local dancers of the Fek Arive group performing the traditional dances of Seychelles around a bond fire. Some of the travel agents even tried dancing the moutya.

In his speech, Mr St Ange told the travel agents that Seychelles will continue to work closely with Thompsons Holidays.

“Seychelles will continue providing travel agents of Thompsons Holidays with the needed tools to enable them to continue selling Seychelles as a destination to South African travellers,” said Mr St Ange.

Mrs Grandcourt noted that “the STB remains fully committed to working with Thompsons Holidays which has shown belief in the destination and the potential of Seychelles to cater for South African travellers.” She added that the STB will continue supporting the travel agents.

She also thanked Select-Seychelles who organised the visit and all the other partners who ensured that the group had a meaningful and enjoyable experience of Seychelles.

On behalf of his colleague, a travel agent said their stay in Seychelles has been a fantastic experience.

 “You have a wonderful product and I have no doubt you will see many more South African tourists coming to your islands,” he added.

All the travel agents won prizes after being divided into four groups for a quiz contest and they also got souvenirs of Seychelles.

After dinner, the travel agents danced the night away to the sounds of Fek Arive.