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Mr St Ange was accompanied by David Germain, the Seychelles Tourism Board’s (STB) manager for South Africa, when they met Mr Gilfellan along with David Frandsen, the company’s executive manager for international marketing, and Linda Ngcipe, manager for international marketing.

Cape Town Routes Unlimited is responsible for promoting Cape Town and the Western Cape, and the meeting with the STB was to assess the advantages of joint marketing, initially for twin-centre holidays from Brazil and Argentina, two important South American markets for South Africa and two countries from which Seychelles has a small but steady stream of visitors.

The Cape Town and Seychelles delegations agreed it is important to unite their forces to promote themselves better in South America and left the meeting convinced their unique products – a Seychelles beach holiday and a Cape Town and Western Cape region holiday, coupled with a South African safari – could be easily combined.

“We need to be more innovative in this period when the world’s economies are under pressure, and offering long-haul holidaymakers two destinations that complement each other, as one holiday option, is a positive way forward,” said Mr St Ange.

Mr St Ange and Mr Gilfellan have agreed to meet again at the World Travel Market in London to move this new partnership forward. In the meantime, Mr Germain will join his Cape Town counterparts in meetings this coming week with visiting Brazilian press delegations where pre- and post-World Cup programmes for visiting football fans will be discussed.

South Africa will also join Seychelles to host a Brazilian TV crew for a joint South Africa-Seychelles reportage in January.

Mr Gilfellan and his delegation are set to visit Seychelles in the near future to strengthen the new partnership agreement.

Mr St Ange has been actively pursuing marketing cooperation with regional countries, and the Cape Town agreement follows similar twin-centre holiday agreements reached earlier this year with Kenya and Reunion.