By Julie King
Interview with Sherin Francis
In this final blog about tourism in Seychelles since the pandemic, Sherin Francis, CEO of Seychelles Tourism Board, talks about the future and sustainability of the industry and gives her advice for destinations that are opening soon.
Talking about the future and sustainability of the industry, what do you think from a global perspective that the industry needs to do to shift to ensure that it has a positive impact on the planet, society and a stronger economy overall?
In Seychelles, sustainability has always been part of our marketing messages and marketing strategy. Seychelles is almost synonymous with the word conservation and sustainability; probably when you mentioned the name Seychelles, many people would automatically associate us with this word. There’s been a lot of talk out there right now, with the pandemic, that perhaps, all this effort is going out of the window because the money is not there for these sustainable projects. But if you ask me my point of view, I would think the contrary.
Because of the pandemic, we should not slow down on all of our sustainability projects, and we should not slow down efforts in terms of conservation and sustainability. We have got a golden opportunity to educate and create awareness with our travellers, the new trends of travellers that will emerge after the pandemic.
We’ve got them at a time where probably, they’ve had time, as I said before, to understand that at the end of the day you can have all the bling in the world, but what’s important is the basic fundamentals. Mother Nature is what we have been blessed with: the trees, sea, water, ocean, and families. And because we’ve managed to bring the world to these kind of thoughts when all the fast-paced activities are at a halt, we should use this opportunity to build our sustainability goals and targets. We should use this opportunity to create more Sustainability Ambassadors.
We are going forward; we want visitors to Seychelles to come to Seychelles for the right reason. We are not into mass tourism, and we want people who come to Seychelles now to participate with us in our initiatives, and be our ambassadors and go back to the world and talk about, about, about our cause and like we are one destination amongst many who have been affected by climate change. And even after the pandemic, climate change issues will still be there. This is a much bigger threat. If you put COVID-19 and climate change on a scale, climate change remains the biggest threat for the world.
“We would like our visitors to understand what kind of threat a small island destination like Seychelles faces. When they go back home, we want them to talk with their friends and families about this and create awareness. And I think the time couldn’t be better for us to achieve those targets.”
What advice would you give from your experience of being open for a few months now, to other countries that are planning to open soon, when it’s safe to do so. From everything you’ve done so far and the lessons you’ve learned?
My first lesson would be it’s essential that you are opening up for the right reason. We are still in a public health crisis, and one should not ignore that fact. Travellers are still concerned about their well-being and health. We should not ignore it in our procedures for opening and finding that delicate balance between reopening, economic activity, and keeping your visitors and your people safe. Yes, we need the money, but we need to keep our own people safe, so we should not ignore them when reopening the destination.
The second one I would say is once you reopen, have a bit of patience as things will not be back to normal anytime soon. It will be slow; you will make a lot of forward progress and backward as well. The important thing is that you keep on pushing it. If you’ve got your procedures right and believe in the procedures, just keep going; it will take time. Some will move faster than others.
And the last one is never to forget that we are a global village. And none of us is in this pandemic alone. We are in it together as a world; each of us faces our struggle in different ways. And we should not be afraid to talk about it to our network, tell people about our experiences – because the only way you can improve your procedures back home is to learn what other countries are doing.
There’s nothing wrong in adopting what somebody else has been doing at this point. As I said, travel is something global; it’s not a local thing, and for travel confidence to pick up, you need all the destinations, all the airlines, all the global partners to be able to rise again. It’s no longer about competition; it’s about collaboration.
