Austria among Seychelles’ top 6 leading markets at start of 2018

Passengers-disembarking-in-Seychelles-on-the-inaugural-Austrian-Airline-flight
Passengers-disembarking-in-Seychelles-on-the-inaugural-Austrian-Airline-flight
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Written by Linda Hohnholz

While Germany maintains its position as the Seychelles’ leading tourism market at the start of 2018, another German speaking market – Austria – is also showing that it has the potential to become an important market for the country.

After having sent 8,720 visitors to Seychelles in 2017, Austria has already sent 68 percent more tourists the island nation so far in 2018.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Austria is now the sixth leading market having sent 1,712 visitors to Seychelles up to February 11, 2018.

On top of being 68 percent above last year’s visitor numbers for the same period, this also represents a 118 percent increase over the 2016 figures.

It is to be noted that Austria received an added boost in air link to Seychelles at the end of October 2017, when its national carrier, Austrian Airlines, launched once-per-week non-stop flights to the Indian Ocean archipelago.

Subsequently, November and December recorded 1,183 and 1,074 Austrian visitors respectively, which were the largest number of visitors recorded from the Western Europe nation for the year 2017.

There is now high hopes that upcoming non-stop service from Zurich by Switzerland’s leisure airline, Edelweiss Air will help to further develop the Swiss tourism market, which is another German-speaking market.

Edelweiss Air is set to start once-weekly flight service between Switzerland and Seychelles on September 22, 2018.

Switzerland sent 12,422 visitors in 2017 and has so far sent 1,148 tourists to Seychelles so far in 2018, which is 32 percent above last year’s figure for the same period.

The Chief executive of the Seychelles Tourism Board, Sherin Francis said: “While it is definitely a bit premature to make any prediction, we do expect that the market will perform better with this added winter flight and extra efforts being invested to raise the Seychelles profile on the Swiss market.”

The STB Director for Germany, Austria & Switzerland, Edith Hunzinger said her office has indeed noticed huge interest in the destination from both Austria and Switzerland, through numerous emails and phone calls.

“This confirms that the intensive implementation of innumerable marketing activities during the past years are now showing the amazing and rewarding results,” said Mrs. Hunzinger.

The Seychelles Tourism Board Office in Frankfurt will be finalizing plans for more marketing activities, including workshops, media trips and consumer events to be undertaken in major cities, in both Austria and Switzerland, to further support and promote Austrian Airlines and Edelweiss Air.

These plans will be finalized during the upcoming ITB Berlin Travel Trade Show scheduled for March 7 to 11, 2018.

About the author

Avatar of Linda Hohnholz

Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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