{"id":973,"date":"2009-09-10T15:20:20","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T12:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/?p=973"},"modified":"2024-03-11T13:44:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T13:44:24","slug":"seychelles-sees-20-pct-drop-in-2009-tourism-revenues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/seychelles-sees-20-pct-drop-in-2009-tourism-revenues\/","title":{"rendered":"Seychelles sees 20 pct drop in 2009 tourism revenues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Seychelles<\/a>The highly-indebted Seychelles had more visitors than expected in the first eight months of 2009, but revenue for the year is expected to slump by a fifth after aggressive discounting, its tourism chief said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Indian Ocean archipelago’s white beaches and topaz waters are a favourite playground for tycoons, royals and celebrities, but the global downturn has squeezed demand for long-haul vacations.<\/p>\n

“We had forecast a drop of 10 percent in visitor arrivals and a corresponding drop of 20-25 percent in tourism receipts. Now that we have closed August, the performance to date is negative 5 percent in arrivals,” Maurice Lostau-Lalanne, chief executive officer of the Seychelles Tourism Board, told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Tourism is the archipelago’s key economic driver and source of foreign exchange. Receipts in 2008 amounted to $321 million, roughly one third of the island’s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

Lostau-Lalanne said May and June had been the best on record since the Seychelles launched its tourism sector in 1972.<\/p>\n

However, hotels have been forced to offer generous discounts to holiday-makers from key European markets to compete with rival destinations such as Indian Ocean neighbour Mauritius and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

“We stand by a drop of 20 percent in revenue (on 2008) given the fall in arrivals and the fact that hotels have had to incentivise heavily with prices,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said the fall took into account the sharp devaluation of the local currency after a raft of economic reforms to liberalise the once state controlled economy last November.<\/p>\n

Last month, the International Monetary Fund upgraded its outlook for Seychelles’ economy in 2009 to a contraction of 8-9 percent from an earlier forecast of an 11 percent shrinkage on healthier-than-expected tourism figures.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the tourism board launched an aggressive marketing campaign to woo middle-market clients whose spending habits are more susceptible to change in tough economic times.<\/p>\n

“The smaller hotels are now enjoying about 80 percent occupancy compared to 60 percent last year,” he said.<\/p>\n

The archipelago, which is home to scores of rare birds, reptiles and plants, is looking to the east of its core European markets in the search for new business.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Russia outperformed forecasts with 7,000 visitors, up 20 percent on the year previous. The number of holidaymakers from the Middle East soared 50 percent last year — with many of them arriving on private jets.<\/p>\n

There are plans to double its tourism capacity — currently 3,000 hotel beds across 11 islands — over the next five years.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The highly-indebted Seychelles had more visitors than expected in the first eight months of 2009, but revenue for the year is expected to slump by a fifth after aggressive discounting, its tourism chief said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[8169,8179,137],"tags":[8171,8170,8182,8172,7881],"class_list":["post-973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-choice","category-best-luxury-hotels","category-sectoral","tag-best","tag-best-choice","tag-best-hotel","tag-hotel","tag-seychelles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8648,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions\/8648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turizmtatilseyahat.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}