The Seychelles’ tourism board could not have hoped for a higher profile endorsement than when the Royal couple, Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, made it their honeymoon destination last year. Tour operators in major markets reported that enquires doubled after the royal visit, while email enquires and hits to the tourism board’s website trebled.
It is 40 years since the first commercial aircraft landed in the Seychelles. Although it will never be a mass-market destination, tourism has boomed in recent years. Perhaps this is little wonder; the country is politically stable, lies outside the cyclone danger zone, and with no extremes in weather, the tourism board claims it is a ‘land of perpetual summer.’ English and French are widely spoken, and despite it being a long-haul flight from its biggest tourist market (Europe), the time difference is just GMT+4 or less.
Situated off the east coast of Africa, the Seychelles are made up of 115 islands with most tourists staying on the Inner Islands of Mahe, Praslin and La Digue. These boast more spectacular scenes than most beach destinations, with their sands famously studded by giant granite boulders smoothed by the ocean. Indeed, National Geographic voted the picture perfect Anse Source d’Argent on relaxed La Digue (where people still travel by bicycle and ox cart) as the world’s most desirable beach.
But the Seychelles is not just a beautiful spot to lay your towel. The island nation has unveiled a new tourism philosophy that Alain St Ange, the Seychelles Minister for Tourism & Culture, believes truly sets it apart from rival destinations. “We have the best of sun, sea and sand here, we are virtually on the Equator, it is 27 degrees year round, there is no winter, and because we are a group of islands, a soft breeze lapse you every day with turquoise sea and white sandy beaches,” he explained.
“We know we have the best, but we want to do more to encourage the population to interact with visitors, which is why we have moved into the world of events; now we have a carnival every March, we have a Festival of the Sea every November, we have a pearl festival every October, and this allows local people to fraternise with the visitors and build what we are calling ‘personalised tourism’ – when you meet a visitor you become their friends,” he added.
It’s one thing to have a good product, but you need air lift to make it work and St Ange and his team said their meetings with airlines at World Routes in Berlin last year and Routes Asia in Chengdu in April had been positive. The islands are some of the oldest on earth and nearly 50 per cent of their total land mass comprises national parks and reserves. Particularly special among these is Vallee de Mai on Praslin, an Unesco-listed prehistoric forest that is home to the rare black parrot and the Coco de Mer palm, which grows a giant nut that can weigh up to 15 kilos.
The Inner Islands contain four bird sanctuaries, and the Seychelles’ famous giant tortoises can be seen en masse on Curieuse Island, which is a short trip from Praslin. Divers are tempted to sites north of Mahe and there is word-class snorkelling around Sainte Anne Island.
The tourism board plans to make more of its other attractions such as sailing, fishing, diving, trekking, spa, golf and cultural tourism, including the Carnaval International de Victoria, a diverse celebration that draws people from across the globe. Meanwhile, eco-tourism is being boosted by the introduction of a sustainable tourism accreditation scheme and there are plans to make La Digue a model eco-haven by 2020.
Total tourist arrivals have grown by around 20,000 each year over the last three years, reaching around 194,500 in 2011. France, Germany and Italy provide the most tourists and latest indications are that Russia will overtake the UK for fourth place in 2012. Despite the recession and the Seychelles’ luxury reputation, all these European markets grew between 2010 and 2011 with France, the largest, increasing arrivals from 35,000 to 39,400.
However, it is Russia that is making significant gains this year. Helped by the charter airline, Transaero Airlines, around 4,465 people flew to the Seychelles during the first quarter – about half its total for 2011. The Middle East and China are also showing growth. Last year, China accounted for 2,124 visitors; more than double its total in 2010. The UAE, the largest Middle Eastern market, rose around 3,000 to 8,490 in the same period.
Chasing this business, the Seychelles tourism board has in the last year opened offices in Abu Dhabi and Singapore (serving Asia as a whole) and posted two tourism executives to the embassy in Beijing. It is also looking to boost tourism from Scandinavia and Asia (particularly India) and Scandinavia.
Growing demand is tempered by a dearth of direct flights from Europe, a situation the tourism board is keen to see reversed. Following restructuring, Air Seychelles dropped most of its long-haul routes, and pulled its direct European connections in January.
Other airlines have stepped in to help fill the void. From January, Russia’s Transaero Airlines has provided a Seychelles charter service while Italy’s Blue Panorama added a weekly service to the islands in February (which will be twice weekly from July). Air Austral proposed that a twice-weekly flight from Paris start in March but has since postponed this. Most services fly via the Middle East and East Africa. The main airlines are Emirates Airline, Qatar Airways, Kenya Airways, plus newcomers Ethiopian Airlines and Etihad Airways.
Ethiopian Airlines, began its four-times-a-week connection to the Seychelles in April. In the Middle East, Qatar stepped up to a daily service last June and Emirates says the Seychelles continues to perform strongly despite the recession. It increased frequencies from Dubai in 2010 and 2011 and now serves the islands 11 times a week with connecting flights from Dublin, Barcelona and Lisbon, opening up the Seychelles to new inbound markets.
Etihad entered the frame in a significant way. In January, it took a 40% stake in state-owned national carrier, Air Seychelles, appointing former regional general manager of Asia-Pacific South and Australasia – Cramer Ball – as CEO. It also signed a five-year management contract to develop Air Seychelles’ network and expand its fleet from its existing five longand five short-range aircraft and is investing $20 million (a sum matched by the islands’ government) and another $25 million via a shareholder loan.
In November, Etihad made its inaugural flight to the Seychelles and now operates four times a week between Abu Dhabi and Mahe with plans to make this daily. Additionally, Air Seychelles has doubled flights to four a week and introduced an A330-200 with 22 flat-beds. The airlines now codeshare across their networks, meaning greater connectivity to Europe, Asia and Australasia, including daily connections from London, Paris, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Berlin. The combined schedule means connections have jumped by 57 to 375 flights per week.
The investment is “a natural next step towards growing our operations in the increasingly important leisure markets of the Indian Ocean and Africa,” says Etihad chief strategy and planning officer, Kevin Knight. “There is a need for greater connectivity to support the Seychelles’ current tourism boom, and both Air Seychelles and Etihad Airways are well-positioned to leverage that demand into substantial commercial growth.”
Air Seychelles will gain another A330 in July and January 2013, enabling it to launch Beijing services in early 2013, with through connections to Johannesburg, and increased Mauritius frequencies. “Etihad’s partnership with Air Seychelles is strategic and important in the repositioning of the national carrier on the international/regional route network,” says the CEO for Seychelles’ tourism board, Elsia Grandcourt. Seychelles minister of home affairs, Joel Morgan, has called the tie-up “game-changing”.
With confidence in tourism growing, so too is the islands’ diminutive international airport. A $150 million expansion project will see a new terminal constructed and apron and airside facilities extended, for completion by 2020. This will boost capacity from 650,000 passengers per year up to two million. “SEZ is gearing itself to take Seychelles’ aviation services into the next decade by further developing its business to become a hub in the Indian Ocean and a gateway above and beyond Africa,” says Grandcourt. “This is our Vision 2020.”
A more immediate boost should arise from the islands’ hosting of Routes Africa this July 8-10. Grandcourt says the conference comes at an “opportune time as the Seychelles is repositioning itself to be more accessible than ever and is pushing to establish new air access opportunities.” Africa is important to the Seychelles, not only as a market but because its visitors can often be tempted to add an African safari trip to their holiday, most commonly in Kenya or Tanzania.
The tourism board recently ran a campaign encouraging tourists to link the ‘Big Five’ African animals (the lion; African elephant; Cape buffalo; leopard and rhinoceros) with the ‘Best Five’ of the Seychelles’ natural attractions (its granite and coral islands; beaches; seas; climate and ethnic diversity).
Kenya Airways, the longest serving carrier to the Seychelles, takes a slice of the luxury safari/beach combination. It increased its Nairobi–Seychelles operation to three flights a week from April and reports particularly good feeder traffic from France and the Netherlands.
The tourism board is also suggesting visitors combine the Seychelles with one or more of its neighbours: Réunion, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mayotte and the Comoros Islands, which are jointly marketed as the ‘Vanilla Islands’. Island officials met with airline representatives last year to discuss better access between them.
The Seychelles are particularly synonymous with luxury and romance. Last spring, Raffles opened a hotel on Praslin with 86 villas and a butler service. Satellites of the main islands house other exclusive resorts that include North Island Villas, where the royal honeymooners, actor Brad Pitt and author JK Rowling, have all stayed.
However, mindful of recession in its core markets, the tourism board is keen to stress the destination’s affordability. A new tourism campaign ‘The Seychelles Islands…accessible as never before’, highlights its varied accommodation choices from five-star resorts to small homely hotels, Creole guesthouses and self-catering establishments. The range is set to grow with plans to increase the islands’ bedstock from 4,000 to 6,000 rooms by 2015. The hope for the next few years is that the Seychelles will fall within reach of more people, both in terms of cost and travel.
This story appears in the latest issue of Routes News, which can be read here Routes News. A copy of the world air service development magazine is also in all delegate bags at Routes CIS.
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