China & Seychelles push for direct non-stop flights following CAISSA Meeting in Seychelles
ATP- arab tourism portal- Wei Ling, the Senior Vice President of CAISSA Touristic and of the CAISSA Travel Management Co. Ltd is in Seychelles with her Spring Festival Charter that this year operated from Beijing via Abu Dhabi.
This week she met with Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture at the Ministry’s Offices at ESPACE Building in Victoria. Minister St.Ange was accompanied at the meeting by Sherin Naiken, the CEO of the seychelles Tourism Board, Anne Lafortune, the PS for Tourism, Benjamine Rose, the PS for Culture, Rosemarie Hoareau, the Director of Marketing at the Tourism Board , Jean-Luc Lailam, the Seychelles Tourism Board’s Manager in China and Stephanie Lablache of the Marketing Department of the Tourism Board.
Mrs Wei Ling who is also the the General Manager of the CAISSA Touristic Beijing Branch said as she was welcomed at the Ministry’s Boardroom that she was thankful for all the assistance by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture and its Tourism Board for all assistance to the Spring Festival 2015 Charter from China possible.
Minister St.Ange on his part retraced discussions that had taken place at the CAISSA HeadOffice when he and CEO Naiken visited China last year. "The good thing is that you are now in Seychelles with your charter. It is still not what we had discussed because we both wanted to see direct non-stop flights, but it is a start.
We now need to work on the way forward to see an increase in the number of Chinese visitors coming to Seychelles and this we know that the needed catalyst remains direct non-stop flights" the Minister said.
Housekeeping notes were tabled by the CAISSA Senior Vice President which included points to make Chinese Visitors more welcome and to facilitate them with the language barrier.
These included Chinese as a language on Major Signs, a version of the Seychelles Immigration Form to be printed in English and Chinese language, a priority lane at Immigration at the airport for the elderly and for families with babies, having more Chinese speaking Staff in local DMCs and also having more Chinese Guides to facilitate excursions and visits by Chinese groups, and to see the possibility for an off-peak arrival time for Charters from China to reduce confession at the airport arrival hall.
The CAISSA Senior Vice President also confirmed that they are interested in using their own aircraft in the future for charters to Seychelles.
She expressed the desire of CAISSA airline branch to set up an office in Seychelles and for them to have a CAISSA Check-in Counter when they are operating into Seychelles.
CAISSA has today 23 branches across China are have confirmed that they are ready to start work for launching regular non-stop and direct charters to Seychelles.
This they said after Minister Alain St.Ange said that the President of the Republic had asked for everything to be done in order to get direct non-stop flights between Seychelles and China