The Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association (SHTA) convened for its annual general meeting last Friday, with a call for stronger industry-wide resolve toward addressing the sector’s key challenges.
Held at the Northolme Hotel, the meeting was also an occasion for the association to elect officers to its executive committee and discuss some of the critical issues currently facing the industry.
Members re-elected Plantation Club general manager Francis Mondon as the SHTA chairman, while Bart Labuschagne and Captain Pierre Grandcourt were elected as the association’s two vice chairs.
Louis d’Offay (honorary secretary) and Alan Mason (treasurer) were also re-elected to the SHTA executive committee, rounded out by members Freddy Karkaria, Daniella Alis Payet, Alain St Ange and Natasha Rassool.
Mr Mondon, in delivering his chairman’s report to members, commented on the growth of the SHTA in the past year, both in terms of its 15 percent increase in membership and the numerous activities it has engaged in on behalf of its members.
He said he perceived the SHTA “growing into a far more integrated body which will eventually influence the core dynamics of our industry.”
But the chairman warned that even with the industry headed for unprecedented expansion in the next few years, success in the tourism sector was not guaranteed.
“What has been gained over many years can easily be lost,” he said. “Tourism is one of the world’s most competitive industries and there is no shortage of innovation or new product ideas among competitors.”
Mr Mondon said all of the industry’s stakeholders would need to come together to afford tourism its rightful place in national debate and in the public eye.
“Tourism has become, as many of its industry representatives say ever more vocally, the most vital economic driver of the
“Despite these facts, the industry is one of the least understood,” he added, noting that there was an urgent need for SHTA and STB to “rapidly develop a process of regional education so that the industry is given the social, economic and political weight it merits in the domestic, regional and international arena.”
During the meeting, SHTA members in attendance expressed some of their concerns about the industry going forward, including the longstanding issue of high operating costs stemming from the GST, current occupancy rates, the harassment of tourists for foreign exchange and the increase of petty crime.
The association’s members were also presented with a short summary of the branding exercises currently being carried out for the destination, by the STB’s Nathalie Savy.
(SHTA Press Release)