Never thought of visiting the Seychelles? Well, you might be soon. In our Breakout Role series, we take a look at places that have seen huge increases in tourism in the last few years, and try to figure out what’s causing all the hype.
By any measure, Seychelles is a relatively tiny country. The African nation, made up of 115 small islands bunched together in the western Indian Ocean, has a population of around 90,000 people and a total landmass that is only about 2.5 times larger than Washington, D.C.
But if there’s one thing in Seychelles that’s enormous, it’s tourism. In its 2014 report, the World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that almost 57 percent of the country’s yearly GDP had either directly or indirectly come from travel. The country has been so successful in expanding its hospitality industry that its former minister of tourism, a man named Alain St. Ange, is now running—with a great deal of support—to become the next General Secretary of the United Nations’ World Tourism Association.
And things aren’t slowing down in Seychelles either. In 2015 the island nation had the world’s 12th largest growth in international visitors, and in 2016 alone the country saw a 10 percent increase in total arrivals.
Lights
Photo: Didier Baertschiger, CC-BY
Turning an isolated archipelago into a tourism success story isn’t done over night, and in Seychelles this process has been ongoing for decades. David Germain, Seychelles’ director of tourism for Africa and the Americas, says that when the country started to really frame itself as a travel destination—around 35 or 40 years ago by his estimation—one of the first goals was to include the entire population, and to educate them as to the benefits the industry could bring their nation.
“I think we took the right step in getting the population involved in tourism right at the beginning,” Germain says. “The kids grow up understanding tourism.”
A look at the country’s yearly climate statistics may lead to the conclusion that its smooth, clear-blue beaches were always destined to become a tourism hub. The weather is incredibly consistent, with average daily temperatures hovering in the mid-to-low 80s all year long. Additionally, the nation’s lack of any sort of visa requirement for entry makes travel from any country—for any period of time—extremely accessible.
Over time, Seychelles began to emerge as a popular vacation spot for Europeans, but things changed in the 1990s when a rise in global tourism made some travelers a little more skeptical of taking such a long flight to the islands. According to Germain, it was after this period that the country began to look to new source markets, such as the Americas, Russia and other parts of Asia, for new visitors.
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