“This is half of what we were doing in 2019. On July 20, we had one of the best days since we reopened our borders, where we had 8,580 visitors present in the country. This is linked to the Eid Holiday, where we get a lot of visitors from the Middle East. During a good year like 2019, we have an average of 10,000 visitors in the country at any given time. This figure goes up to 15,000 on special days such as Christmas and Easter,” said Francis.

Provisional figures from the Central Bank Seychelles show that the tourism earnings gap from month-to-month is narrowing. There has also been an improvement in the amount of income per visitor. In 2019, tourism earnings stood at an average of $1,500 per head. Now the provisional figures stand at an average of almost $1,700 per head.

She also outlined that the top leading market at the moment – Russia – broke its 2017 record in terms of the number of citizens who came into the country for the year from 13,191 to 13,996 already for this year.

“We are still in July, and if everything remains the same for the Russian market, it might become a market that we will be able to continue relying on for the rest of the year. It is Aeroflot that is bringing in the majority of Russian visitors into the country at the moment and the airline has plans to add another flight later on during the year, which will amount to five flights per week,” said Francis.

The next three top performing markets are Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel, and Germany.

Francis also outlined that Seychelles is one of few travel destinations in the world that is performing above average when it comes to global travel.

“At the moment the world average is still really low as it is still struggling in terms of global travel. The type of travel that has picked up the most is domestic travel. When we compare our performance to the world average, it is way higher,” she said.

She credited this good performance to Seychelles being a safe destination in regards to the pandemic.

Original article by Salifa Karapetyan for Seychelles News Agency

“Seychelles is one of few travel destinations in the world that is performing above average when it comes to global travel.”

– Sherin Francis,
Tourism Principal Secretary