President Michel opening the WTO Commission For Africa meeting on Sunday

WTO secretary general Mr Frangialli

African tourism  chairman Mr Valentim

President James A. Michel on Sunday evening (May 9), said that stakeholders in the tourism industry from the Africa region have demonstrated their firm determination to make the industry more sustainable.

The very presence of the 114 delegates at the 41st Meeting of the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) Commission For Africa, he said,  is yet another clear indication of that determination.

It also shows their acceptance of the responsibility to pursue the principles of responsible tourism and to continually re-look at what it takes to arrive at it.

The Head of State was speaking at the Plantation Club and Resort where he officially opened the five-day meeting, which is being attended by tourism ministers and representatives of the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) and of WTO.

"The past few years have been trying times for the world’s largest industry. "Consequently, the small, the weak, the vulnerable and the less fortunate such as many of us present here today, Seychelles included, were left with no choice but to continue to reinvent ourselves so as to remain competitive," he said.

He said that in doing so, the stakeholders have had to focus on medium and short-term solutions and to consistently develop new techniques for dealing with such setbacks effectively whilst still keeping an eye on the bigger picture of where they would like to go as tourism destinations.

"In our part of the world, which remains one of the calmest regions for tourists, we continue to strive to ensure that tourism does not only help us to balance the budget, but brings a quality of life to our people as well as plays a role in the management of our environment through sustainable practices," he said.

He said that the delegates' gathering is a reaffirmation of the principles of the United Nations (UN) Charter, whereby big and small countries are viewed as being on an equal footing to bring the world closer together. 

"Seychelles and the WTO enjoy a dynamic and cordial working relationship that has achieved tangible results," he said, and recalled that in 2002, Seychelles was called upon by the WTO to chair the meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York, which officially launched the International Year of Ecotourism.

"We also played host to a very successful Prepcom on the Sustainable Development of Ecotourism in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) which indeed helped ensure the overall success of the International Year of the Ecotourism itself," the President said adding that on a regional basis, Seychelles last year hosted the first sub-regional Workshop on Tourism Statistics and the Elaboration of a Tourism Satellite Account, which, he said, through the use of hard facts and figures will in the long run allow the stakeholders to understand the true size and value of the tourism industry to the respective countries' national economies.

He said Seychelles is honoured to have been elected to the Executive Council of the WTO for the next four years and equally mandated to represent Africa as the alternate member on the WTO Programmes Committee for the period 2004 – 2006.

"Through the tireless efforts of secretary general Francesco Frangialli, our organisation has become a specialised agency of the United Nations Organisation, a status that has enabled the WTO to assume its rightful role within the United Nations system and the world community," President Michel said, expressing hope that during the foreign delegates' stay here, they will have the opportunity to experience and to learn from Seychelles' 30 years or so experience in the practice of sustainable tourism, whereby valuable lessons of best practices can be shared.

WTO secretary general Francesco Frangialli said President Michel's presence at the meeting on Sunday was significant because the meeting is the first that the Commission is holding in a country of the region after the recent conversion of the WTO into a specialised agency of the UN system, a decision that was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 23, 2003.

"Secondly, Mr President, the fact that you are inaugurating our meeting so soon after your taking office as your country's leader is a strong sign of the importance your government attaches to the tourism sector," he said.

Mr Frangialli then summarised the trends in the development of world tourism saying 2003 was a difficult year.

"The sector experienced a decline of 1.2 percent after a 2.7 percent growth in 2002," he said.

He blamed the Iraq conflict, the Sars epidemic and the continued weakness of the world economy for the decline.

The WTO Commission for Africa chairman, George Alicers Valentim, said that in Africa, tourism has become a permanent factor to the economical  and social planification by all governments in fighting poverty and creating employment.

"But we need decisive political support such as a way that all international financial organisations, namely the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Union and other institutions could give a determinant support for investments in hotels and tourist resorts in all our countries as they are doing in other continents," he said.

Both Mr  Frangialli  and Mr Valentim expressed their appreciation for the warm reception they and the other visiting delegates received upon their arrival in Seychelles, which Mr Valentim described as "genuine African hospitality."

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