India and Seychelles tourism meet and agree to work together as never before

Minister Shripad Naik, the Minister for Culture and Tourism of the government of India, last week welcomed to his offices at Transport Bhawan at Sansad Marg in New Delhi, the Seychelles Minister who is also responsible for Tourism and Culture and his high-level delegation who were on an official working visit to India. Minister Alain St.Ange of the Seychelles and Minister Shripaid Naik of India had already met before this official meeting and both got on together which made the meeting very cordial and open to discuss a new level of cooperation between India and Seychelles in the field of tourism and also in the field of culture.

On the Indian side, Parvez Dewan, the Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, and Usha Sharma, the Additional Director General at the Ministry of Tourism, among others, were present and sitting alongside Minister Shripad Naik. Seychelles on their part had HE Waven William, the High Commissioner of the Seychelles based in New Delhi; Sherin Naiken, the CEO of the island’s Tourism Board; Benjamine Rose, the PS for Culture; Marco Francis, the Chairman of the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industries; Patsy Moustache, the Second Secretary at the Seychelles High Commission; and members of the Indian Association of Seychelles Pravin Darad, Vijay Patel, Ramakrishnan Pillay, Shanmouga Pillay, Narendra Raghvani, and Narasimhan Ramani.

At the tourism level, Minister Shripad Naik was informed by his Seychelles counterpart of the desire by Seychelles to work in India to claim its fair share of Indian holidaymakers. Minister Shripad Naik proposed that India and Seychelles work together to offer to long-haul travelers the twin-center option that all take in the “Incredible India & the Another World” tag line of the two countries respectively and present to the Community of Nations a new package. This idea was discussed and agreed, and the tourism departments of the two countries are now working to come up with a promotional flyer along the lines of what Seychelles launched some four years ago with Africa that spelled out the “From the Big Five to the Best Five” tagline.

A first joint operation is expected to be launched during the first week of October when tour operators and press from the four corners of the world will be invited to India for a Tourism Event that will put forward India & Seychelles. Working with airlines flying to Seychelles with connections to India will then enable the tourism officials of the two countries to then lead a selection of these tour operators and press to discover the islands of the Seychelles.

Minister Shripad Naik of India also tabled his desire to see India join the Indian Ocean Vanilla Islands Regional Organization through their Andaman Island that sits also in the Indian Ocean and that is, in its own right, a unique selling point for the region as a whole. Minister St.Ange welcomed this call by India and assured his Indian counterpart that he would be taking up the desire expressed by India to the Vanilla Islands CEO who was himself participating in the road show and meeting with the Indian travel trade alongside the Seychelles private sector.

“I have always said that our region has to work with an open mind and rally together all the unique selling points of the region. No island can any longer be an island unto itself, it is in working together that the Indian Ocean islands will be consolidated as the NEW tourism destination offering diversity not seen, and that cannot be seen anywhere else,” said Minister St.Ange of the Seychelles who had himself held two consecutive mandates as President of the Vanilla Islands Organization.

The Seychelles Minister also discussed the historic October meeting in Seychelles organized by the UNWTO & the ICAO (United Nations World Tourism Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization) for tourism and transport ministers of Africa. Minister St.Ange discussed the spirit of a south-south cooperation and said that it would be good if Minister Shripad Naik would consider to be in Seychelles for this historic meeting.

On the culture front, India was invited to commit to showcase their rich culture at the annual Carnaval International de Victoria that is staged in April in the Seychelles. This event that appears on the Calendar of Events of the Vanilla Islands has had participation of India but never an official delegation representing the country’s Ministry of Tourism. The participation by India was confirmed by Minister Shripad Naik who went further to approve other requests for cooperation in the field of training and in attachment of personnel to help in certain specialized fields.

Both ministers said that the were happy with their meeting and looked forward to a close working relationship.