STB committed to revamping tourism academy into centre of excellence – CEO |24 August 2007

The STB is also committed to “making the STA work for the private sector so as to facilitate the needs of hotels of the tourism industry”, which absorbs the majority of graduates from the academy.

These were said by STB’s chief executive officer Maurice Loustau-Lalanne while speaking at a presentation on Wednesday by representatives from Austria’s International College of Tourism and Management (ITM) who are here to assess the tourism training setup in Seychelles, toward what could be the start of a potential partnership with the STA.

The presentation took place at the STA’s premises at La Misere.

Noting that preparing STA students for the industry requires more that a one-year certificate, Mr Loustau-Lalanne remarked that “to achieve this, the new STA must establish partnerships with reputable tourism schools from which we could learn and tap into their expertise”, hence the interest in establishing a link with the ITM.

“We need to be able to establish a rigorous curriculum and a support infrastructure to match that will allow our students to obtain internationally recognized diploma, and possibly a degree,” the CEO said.

At Wednesday’s presentation, ITM’s CEO, Hans Lichtenwagner, and the director of Studies, Claudia Rothwnagl noted that ITM has an established track record of excellence over 25 years in Austria as a leading tourism management college.

Besides local hotel representatives and other partners of the tourism industry, the presentation was also attended by the director of the STA, Flavien Joubert; the chairman of the Seychelles University Foundation, Dr Rolph Payet; the director of the Polytechnic Audrey Nanon; and staff of the STB and STA as well as students.

At Wednesday’s ceremony representatives of various small hotels and guest houses in the country were presented with certificates of recognition for efforts made at enhancing their establishments under the Seychelles’ Secrets project. The project was devised by STB a couple of years ago to get small hotels and guest houses to achieve a set standard pertaining to service offered to clients.

A total of 32 small hotels and guest houses have been issued with certificates of recognition thus far, while a further five are expected to receive theirs shortly.