By Julie King
Interview with Sherin Francis
The fifth destination that we’ll be showcasing is Seychelles. In this first blog, we will hear how Seychelles as a destination has adapted, challenges they’ve faced and overcome and the new measures in place resulting from COVID-19.
Sherin Francis, is the Chief Executive Officer of Seychelles Tourism Board.
We will start with the impact of COVID-19 on Seychelles. You have the task of navigating Seychelles through the pandemic, a significant challenge for a destination where tourism directly contributes 26% of the GDP, with a total contribution of 65%. How challenging has that been for the industry and what measures have been put in place to ensure visitor confidence across the whole customer journey now that the destination has reopened?
We reopened the destination for scheduled flights on the first of August, so it’s been a little bit over three months since we reopened. But, since the first of June, we allowed private planes and private charters to come. Since we reopened we realise that one of the main concerns for travellers is their well-being, so we ensured that the country was opened safely. We had to reassure both the visitors and our local population that the country was doing this in a very responsible way with the health of both our visitors and our population first in this process. The first criteria for travelling to Seychelles was what we called a list of permitted countries. That was predetermined based on the level of risk amongst other factors such as the testing strategy and the evolution of the virus in the specific countries. If your country featured on this list, then it means you could travel to Seychelles. We started with a list of about thirty countries, and now the list has been extended to forty. Eventually, the list will get longer, and hopefully, at some point, we will be open to the rest of the world.
Anybody travelling from this list would have to take a test COVID PCR test strictly seventy two hours before travelling. We created the second category of visitors; that is a small number of countries where we allowed visitors to come even if the risk was relatively high in their country. Their test had to be done within forty eight hours before travel. Other than this, you need also travel insurance covering COVID-19 and your ticket booked for accommodation into a certified establishment. By certified, I mean you have to be Safe Certified; a lot of effort has been invested in ensuring that all hotels reopened with the safe label, meaning they comply with the Department of Public Health guidelines in terms of the various measures they need to have in place. Amongst these is daily monitoring of all their visitors in their properties to ensure that the visitors are not showing any signs or symptoms of the sickness.
Seychelles has recorded a very low number of cases and, from what I understand, no community transmissions or deaths from the infections. Has that remained the same from the time that you’ve opened to international visitors? And do you feel with all of the procedures you have in place that it’s been very controlled?
Yes, so far, the Department of Public Health has done an amazing job keeping the infection at bay even since the beginning of the pandemic. We’ve had a few cases since we reopened the airport, but these were well contained because of the risk filters the country put in place. We knew a certain degree of risk remains; we’ve made it as safe as possible, but it did not mean that it’s completely 100% safe. That’s why you need to take the test seventy two hours or forty eight hours before you travel, meaning there are two or three days where you may still be exposed.
This is why we’ve had a few cases, but the good thing is how these have been handled and managed at home. All tourism services, tourism operators, and other operators have made a concerted effort at a country level to ensure that everyone is ready for the reopening of the borders. Each of them has its internal procedures and protocols for handling visitors to ensure that everybody is kept safe. Because of that, even when the visitors came in being positive, there was a good contact tracing system in place. The Department of Public Health could easily retrieve records from everywhere and every touchpoint of those visitors to enable the conduct tracing. Up to now, for every positive case, we still do not have any community transmission.
“And Seychelles, with all the islands, as you know, is not a crowded destination, and there’s lots of space for tourists to feel comfortable. They can have their own space on a beach, and there’s not going to be lots of people. From a tourism visitor experience, it is the perfect destination for feeling very safe’
It’s a great relief for tourists coming to Seychelles to experience this safety. The accommodation has the Safe Tourism Certificates in place; are those assessed by anyone outside of the hotels regularly to make sure that everyone’s complying? Is that the role of the Tourism Board and how does that work?
Yes, that is very true, and I believe this makes Seychelles even more appealing in the world. We are a small destination; we are not specialised in mass marketing. Since we are very niche, we welcome a very small number of visitors per year. And naturally, because of that, a social distancing kind of holiday was already the trend for Seychelles. It’s a place where you don’t feel like you’re in a crowded tourist place. You can very easily see yourself alone on a beach. These unique features of Seychelles, even before the pandemic, are a reason why people should be considering Seychelles for their holiday.
Before the hotels restart their operation, they had to get the Safe Tourism Certificate from the Department of Tourism jointly endorsed by the Department of Public Health. When they receive the certificate, there is a reporting mechanism where they have to report, every day, on their visitors continuously; even when there are no visitors, they have to report that as well.
So they are in constant communication with the Department of Public Health for that measure. There are no other checks in between, but you are required to adhere to the procedures because if something happened, I don’t think any hotel would like to have to face the consequences. If something happened in a resort and they have not been keeping the records of their visitors and not following the procedures, it’s damaging for them from a PR point of view. So there is an incentive for them to join us in this, and we get them to sign an agreement, especially for the visitors from the Category Two countries, where the risks are relatively higher. They agree to adhere to the various set procedures in place for the safety of their property, their staff and the visitors.
From a travel bubble perspective, is Seychelles looking at any additional destinations to the ones that you currently have, travelling into the destination? Is there anything on the horizon that you’re working on?
Traditionally, most of our visitors have always come from Europe, but in times like this, where the volume is so small, every market has an equal chance to contribute to our visitor’s basket. And we should not underestimate the potentials of the peripheral markets right now because the conditions are not the same. Many people cannot travel because of all the travel restriction in place. And Seychelles, having managed the situation quite well, has visitors who travelled to Seychelles and feel that they are in a safe environment. They would recommend travel to Seychelles to anybody in their sphere of influence.
On one side, there are the travel restrictions in many countries; their citizens are not being recommended to travel. And if they are allowed to travel, there is still the fear of being infected. On the other side, Seychelles is seen as a safe destination, so I think there is an opportunity to tick the box for many of them, where the risk is relatively low. For example, Australia ticks the box for us and is on our radar. And so we are exploring opportunities where we can establish a direct charter, even if it’s not a traditional source market for us.