Indian Ocean Vanilla islands tourism region continues to be seen and heard |04 January 2014

The grouping of the Indian Ocean islands comprising the Comoros, Reunion, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Mayotte and Seychelles, is getting visibility from everywhere under its Vanilla Islands banner.

Visibility for the Indian Ocean tourism region has been growing ever since the press conference staged during WTM (World Travel Market) 2013 in London and called by Taleb Rifai, the secretary general of the UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organisation).

The conference was jointly chaired by Mr Rifai and Tourism and Culture Minister Alain St Ange, who is also the president of the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands.

The organisation now has Pascal Viroleau of Reunion as its chief executive and Derek Savy of Seychelles as its director of marketing.

Speaking at the joint UNWTO and Vanilla Islands press conference, Mr St Ange said the new tourism region in the Indian Ocean has diversity in islands, in people, in culture and in unique selling points (USPs).

"Each island or groups of islands have their own special attractions and each can attract and attracts even today their own faithful clientèle. Each island has tour operator partners programming them already, the challenge we have is to get packages that combine two or three of our islands together and this we are working with partner airlines to overcome," said Minister St Ange.