Strong German Delegation to Join Seychelles Carnival Again

Strong German Delegation to Join Seychelles Carnival Again

ATP-  arab tourism portal- Once again, a strong German delegation is heading for the Seychelles to join this year s Carnaval International de Victoria. While the carnival season in most parts of Germany ended in mid-February (on Ash Wednesday), the revellers who can’t get enough of the “good times” are definitely looking forward to adding a few more days of music, dance, and joy in the tropical ambiance of the Seychelles carnival in late April. For the third time each, a group of carnival club members from Düsseldorf and a large group of DERTOUR travel agents — this time from Germany and Austria — will be attending the festivities in Victoria.

The 20 Düsseldorf delegates are members of the Comitee Düsseldorfer Carneval e.V. (CC) and will include the reigning Carnival “Prince” Christian and “Princess” Venetia Claudia from this city on the lower Rhine River. The CC, founded in 1825, is an umbrella organization that coordinates the work of several independent carnival clubs in Düsseldorf.

The capital of the German state of North-Rhine/Westphalia is famous for its „Alt“ beer and its posh downtown shopping district, but also for the spirit of fun and humor that is evident each year in the carnival celebrations that are broadcast live on national television in Germany. Etihad Airways and Air Seychelles are sponsoring the trip and will be bringing the group to Mahé in the Seychelles and back home via Abu Dhabi.

No participants from Düsseldorf were able to attend the Seychelles carnival in 2013, when the festivities in the tropical islands of the Seychelles overlapped with those in Germany, but DERTOUR, one of the leading German tour operators with a large portfolio of Seychelles hotels, filled the gap easily with a group of travel agents who were more than eager to join the parade.

In fact, DERTOUR was so thrilled that they repeated the trip last year — and this time around, they have expanded it to include Austrian travel agents as well. The “fam trip” organized by the tour operator in cooperation with the Seychelles Tourism Board Office in Frankfurt, Emirates, and numerous local sponsors, will bring twenty agents from each of the two countries plus four group leaders (a total of 44) to the Seychelles to get a first-hand impression of what the buzz is all about — and to send their clients here in years to come.

Moreover, ten journalists from major outlets will be covering the events for German-speaking media. This will further boost the familiarity of German-speaking travelers with the event that is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. Carnival has a long tradition in the Rhine Valley, in the Southwest of Germany and in neighboring Switzerland.

More than 50,000 guests — nearly 22% of all Seychelles visitors — hailed from the German-speaking market last year, making it the dominant source market for our country. Combining the general appeal of the islands with a special appeal of carnival is obviously a no-brainer, as far as the German-speaking countries are concerned.

Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture and Sherin Naiken, the CEO of the island’s Tourism Board said when they were at ITB Tourism Trade Fair in Germany that this DERTOUR Delegation coming to the 2015 edition of the carnival in Seychelles is the clear example of consolidating tourism through culture. "The interest by Germany to be present at our annual carnival is a clear message that through culture we can all work together as a country to consolidate our tourism industry" said Minister St.Ange.