When we talk aboutthe African continent, we refer to it as a country but it’s actually not.Africa is the second biggest continent on earth after Asia, not only by thesize but also by the population that is living there.
It’s up to a billioninhabitants speaking around 2000 different languages. In fact, it’s a whole ofmore than 50 countries which have different identities by the multiple flags,currencies, history, etc. But there is more, the African continent is also madeof various islands, Indian Ocean Islands and Atlantic Ocean Islands, some beingsovereign states and some being dependent territories of France, Portugal,Italy and Spain.
The African continent is also seen as a really warm, poor,violent, subject to many diseases destination with only deserts for kilometers,of course there are countries with a low level of wealth and such but many havea good global economy, a panel of climates as rainforest or mountains, it’s notunusual to get some snow during the cold period. Like every continent there arepros and cons.A specific pictureis depicted in our mind when we talk about this continent so we decided to picka place which make you change the way you perceive African destinations.The Republic of Seychellesis a small insular country, an archipelago made of many islands which aresituated in the Indian Ocean, 1.500km away from the east side of Africa’scontinent.The Seychelles isa total of 115 granite and coral islands and has a capital called Victoria, thebiggest city with 25.000 inhabitants that’s more than 25% of the country’spopulation which is 94.
905 inhabitants (December 2017) for a land area of 455km². It is also the smallest population of any sovereign African country evenif it is ranked at the 60th position worldwide in term of population densitywith 186 people per km².There are threelanguages used on the archipelago. The first one is the Seychellois Créolewhich is a dialect resulting of the blend of the French and Créole languages. Englishis the second, used in the sector of business and governance but mostly intourism to facilitate the exchange.
The last one is French, related to thehistory of the country which was colonized by the French, even after thedeparture of the colonialists, the language stayed but is not commonly used bythe Seychellois.The country hadfaced many conflicts between French and British through history before it earnshis independence from the U.K. in the 70’s. This major step led the country froman agricultural society to a market-based diversified economy. Since theproclamation of independence by the British, the GDP output has increased byalmost 7 times and the purchasing power parity by almost 16.The agriculture stillhas a big role in the economy but an important focus is given to the serviceand public sectors especially the tourism.Those last years,the state had encouraged foreign investment to improve the tourism sector and actuallythe Seychelles has one of the best GDP in Africa but like many countries on thecontinent, the wealth distribution is unfair and poverty remains due to thatincome inequality.
We are going to focus on different aspect of thetourism sector in the Seychelles and cover various topics as the partnershipbetween the parties, the main segments targeted and how the marketers appealtourists by the promotion of the Seychelles as a destination and whatexperiences is given to them while theirs stay on the islands. Theopportunities, challenges faced by the country as well as the goals andobjectives of the tourism development and how is executed the crisis managementplans in case of issue. We will finish with what could be some recommendationsfor the further development and management of the Seychelles as a destination.
