Tourism Minister meets North Island staff team at invitation of Management Company and Owners Representative
ATP- Arab tourism portal- The Minister for Tourism and Culture Alain St.Ange has met the management team and members of staff of the exclusive North Island Resort to primarily listen to them and to understand "a Seychellois hotel employee’s take on their tourism and the challenges seen by them" living and working on the island that continues to attract the Who’s Who of famous personalities for their tropical holidays.
The visit to North Island was at the invitation of the island’s Management Company and of the Owners’ Representative after meeting Minister St.Ange at the Ministry’s ESPACE Offices a couple of weeks ago. Minister St.Ange said that this visit to yet another resort is part of his door-to-door visit of licensed tourism establishments of the islands he started close to two years ago.
North Island remains one of Seychelles prime tourism establishments and this visit by the tourism Minister and his entourage was long overdue. "We know that North Island remains a unique asset for our country’s tourism industry.
The request by the Island Owners representative and by the Management Company for us to visit the island and for us to meet the Staff Team was a great opportunity which we accepted because it fell in line with what we at the Ministry have called our door-to-door visit of our tourism establishments" said Minister St.Ange The Minister was accompanied on his visit to North Island by the principal secretaries for tourism Anne Lafortune and culture Benjamine Rose.
There are 141 members of staff on the island, with a little over 70 Seychellois and the rest are of different nationalities and Minister St.Ange and his delegation met with most of them in small groups. Speaking at the meeting, Minister St.Ange reassured the team that the issues that have been brought forward will be addressed with both the Islands Management Company and to the Owning Company.
One point raised during the meeting was a lack of young people wanting to live and work on the island. Getting and retaining young people to work on the island is a major issue.
Though North Island is the ideal working place, with a peaceful and conducive environment, Seychellois youths are not showing much interest in living and working there.
A need to have a recreational area where the members of staff can socialise has also been brought forward.
The members of staff have said they love North Island and being part of the team as they raised the challenges they face.
Minister St.Ange assured all Seychellois Staff that the Government of Seychelles not only believes in its tourism industry, but maintains that guest workers on the islands needed to respect their Seychellois Team members.
"This is something we will not compromise on. We know that we need expatriate workforce because of the smallness of our population. Our Tourism Industry is labour intensive and for us to ensure that the industry can deliver for the economy of Seychelles we have, as a Government embarked on a quota system for our tourism establishments.
But this comes with the responsibility of respect for our local workforce" said Minister St.Ange to the Staff at North Island in the presence of the HR Team of the Island.
