Seychelles Loses Leadership of Tourism Icon
In
a SHTA meeting last week, at the end of another annual general meeting, to
everyone’s astonishment and dismay, Mr. Louis D’Offay, the Chairman for Fifteen
(15) years, announced his resignation in the middle of his mandate. Mr. D’Offay
had served only One (1)year of his Two (2) year mandate, after recently being
re-elected with the full backing of the Tourism Trade Association.
 |
| Mr Louis D'Offay |
Managing Chaos
I have worked under the leadership of Mr.
D’Offay for numerous years at SHTA. I am personally sadden by his departure,
and it leaves a big void in the Tourism Industry. The Trade will need a voice,
as it fights off the encroachment of Government on to business rights. I have
personally witnessed for years, the SHTA battling for the rights of the Tourism
Industry, and their unrelenting effort to educate the government on Tourism and
how bad decisions, affect the Trade adversely. |
| Hotel L'Archipel |
At
times, dealing with government looked like a bad roller coaster ride, with few
breaks, few moments to relish, if any. Victories are short- lived as Government
of Seychelles under PL are opportunistic partners, that take advantage of the
Trade when it suits them. PL break their word when it suits them, they break
their own agreements, TIA for example, impose new taxes without warning (VAT),
increase salaries without warning when they are losing support, cut flights
abruptly (Air Seychelles) , to the detriment of travel agents and other
partners overseas.
Drawing
from my business experience, the government’s handling of Tourism is a bit like
running a mad house, but the managers are the mad ones, not the patients. The
patients are confined to the mad house, to give the managers something to do
and something to play with.
Mr.
D’Offay’s patience and foresight will be missed. His common man touch is second
to none. His experience is second to none, and his integrity to do what is in
the interest of the Seychelles Tourism Industry is second to none.
Tourism Needs Real Partners Not Fake
Partners
Seychelles
Tourism Industry needs real partners in the future. For years, the polite
language of calling government partners to implore them to reasonableness has
been implemented with limited success and a lot of backtracking and face
slapping along the way.
The
time has come for PL to evolve into
serious partners. On the other hand, the Tourism Trade leadership must hold
itself out as a serious industry like any other.
When
PL government is adamant to trample Tourism Industry rights, after all dialogue
is exhausted, as a serious industry, it must not be afraid to challenge
violations of rights that affect the Trade in the Hundreds of Millions of
Rupees collectively, before the Courts of Seychelles. That is what the
Constitution of Seychelles is for, and that is what the Courts of Seychelles is
for. Today, the Court system is more independent then ever in Seychelles
history.
Any Industry that sits on its rights, calls a
government a close partner, while it is being beaten over the head, is not
taking itself seriously and the Seychelles government will not take the
Industry serious and give it the respect it deserves.
It
is a bit like the bull that pulls the karts on La Digue that never raises a
fuss whether or not it has food or water. The time to stop abusing this
Industry and disrespecting it’s leadership is long overdue.
There
has never been any room for cowards in Seychelles Tourism. The first risk
takers like Mr. D’Offay, were brave men and women who invested in a one party
state to jump start private sector involvement in Tourism. They were not
opportunist that saw Seychelles doing well, and jumped on board, to make an
easy living.
As a new generation takes the helm and tries
to fill these big empty shoes left by Mr. D’Offay, they will have to assess
their inner self individually to decide: who will lead us, a back slapper
opportunist, or a true leader of the Trade with courage at his/her back ?
Thank
you Mr. D’Offay for all you did for the Trade and all you tried to do for the
Trade. I slept at night well, knowing you would always fight for the Trade.
Now, I am not so sure, I will sleep so well in the coming years.
Christopher Gill
Seychelles Investor and Hotelier
Thanks Mr DÔffay for your excellent job.You an example of a hard working person ,a real Patriot,and i hope that the new CEO has learnt mûch from your experience and hope she will deliver as you did for the industry needs competent officials to get us out of Pp mess.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you!
Jeanne D'Arc
Thank you Mr. D Offaly for all your hard work,dedication to the Trade,in particular the small seychelloise hotels anD small operators that have been the back bone of Seychelles tourism even if the government never supported us.
ReplyDeleteWe are indebted to you.
Members of the trade I speak to are all concerned over the future of Seychelles Tourism.
ReplyDeleteWe regret the departure of Mr. D'offay.
We now hear that Minister St. Ange is on the way out.
How can we establish any future in Tourism with musical chairs.
Dr St Ange failing to present the Tuorism indsutry with a effective and clear plan and strategy is telling us that we are now going to celebrate DIWALI an Indain fest on our shores again.Seychellois told Pp they donot want to see foreigners celebrating thier traditional .cultural festivities in our Land.
ReplyDeleteSt Ange says it would attract Tuorists.It would Not St Ange.SWHY?Simply becuase DIWALI is celebrated by Indian in the same month,which by the way Pp should encourage Indain to travel to India on this day,thus allow Seychelles to chaerter filghts to bring Indain workers back and forth which would at the same time provide AirSEY with some extra revenues.St Ange told us it would attrac Indains and CHinese.Well St Ange Chinese and Indain are not in love with each other cultural and traditional,thus Chinese tourists would not come to Seychelles to see Indain proccession.STOP foreigner proccession on our Christian streets.
Moreover,How many of Taxpayers money will St Nage and Pp waste in conducting all kinds of celbration each two months rather than use the money to real advertise,promote Tuorism industry?
Carnival has not and will not attract more Tourists.Why?It is done during the high season and Tourists are already on our shores.
Should St Ange develop an OFF-SEASON tourism,a carnival could have attracted tourists but not in a high season where tourists were coming away for the winter holidays.
Stop bulsshiting Seychellois with foreign celebration St Ange.We want our culture,tradition,promoted not Chinese ,Indain, or Arabs.
Jeanne D'Arc
PP thugs say they unite aginst US claims.
ReplyDeleteWell Pp that all your thugs and ilks united behind you is nothing new,They bben uniting behind for 37 years for they depend of PP to survive.Do the people share the same view as Pp thugs?We donot knowFOR PP never ask them of their opinion.
USA pp are the best agent in the world,if the Butcher insist they might well shut Pp arses with more atrocities committed by Pp thugs such as PP sponsoring of RWANDA genocide,Drug trafficking and so on.
Stop abusing Huamn rights PP!
Jeanne D'Arf
Seychelles in talk to develop Somalia blue economy!Morgan zako blan develop your blue economy first before you develop somalia blue economy.Seychelles have lost billion with idiot like you by not having its own fishing boat seen years.
ReplyDeleteJohnny
Johnny those monkeys have half-brain ,they donot have the intellectual ability as a Human being.It is circus therefor appreciate it like Children watching a Circus.
ReplyDeleteJeanne D'Arc
The lies of Joel Morgan....
ReplyDeleteSeychelles in talks to develop Somalia’s blue economy - 04.07.2013
Mr Morgan said the two ministers had discussed the possibility of collaborating to develop Somalia’s fisheries sector.
“We discussed how the two states of Seychelles and Norway could contribute to rebuild Somalia and its economy, while maintaining the very strong requirements such as Operation Ocean Shield to bring safety and stability to the region,” said the minister.
Mr Morgan, how can Seychelles Government help the Somalis develop their fisheries sector when our own fisheries sector is in the hands of foreign companies?
The tuna factory in Seychelles are run by MW Brands a subsidiary of John West.
Most fishing boats and trawlers are from other Countries.
Majority of the employees are from Kenya, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand.
Where is our skills and knowledge in this matter when Seychellois has been sold out to foreigners by your Government?
Stop committing yourself when you rightly know that you will be unable to deliver.
THE OLDER HE GETS THE MORE HE LOOKS LIKE TINTIN!
Gary Tall
Wihle we cannot feed oursleves,cannot pay oue rushing foreign debts,cannot build hospitals oursves(chinese money)cannot create our own Tuna fleet to generate more money,Cannot create jobs for Seychellois ,cannot sponsor AirSey(now gifted to Khalifa)cannot increase consequntly Seychelliis salary,cannot pay Seychellois School teachers a disent salary,living on foreign charity as beggars,etc..etc..
ReplyDeletePp thugs are telling us that they illegally aND UNILATERALLY GOING TO STEAL OUR TAXPAYERTS MONEY TO GIFTED TO sOMALIAN.
tHERE IS wORLD bANK,imf,aFRICAN,bANK AND OTHER iNTERANTIONAL ORGANIZATION MORE APT OF SPONOSORING A CALLPSE sTATES,NOT AN EMPOVERSIH COUNTRY WITH SRUSHING ECONOMIC CRISIS AND CRUSHING DEBTS..
wHO AUTHORIZED pP THUGS TO TAKE OUR TQAXPAYERTS MONEY TO GIFTED TO sOMALI CRIMES AND tERRORISTS?
sOMALI IS A iSLAMIC sTATES ,kHALFIA IS BETTER PALCE TO HELP HIS iSLAMIC BORTHERS THAN bANKRUPTED sEYCHELLES,ISN'T IT ^mORGAN?
It could be antoher tactic for Pp to rob money of our Taxpayers money to full their pockets,.DId Seychellois authorized Pp to rob their money to give to Teerorists?Under Whcih law can Pp thugs take out money to gift others?
He really looks like TINTIN,but the different with TINTIN is that TINTIN is intelligent while the Monkey Morgan has a half-brained of a JImpansy and he is really stupid as he look.In fact he is lookinh less TINTIN but turning to BAMBOUZOU.
Stop your crimes PP!
Jeanne D'Arc
Then its time for us to take back our fishing industries from foreigners.
ReplyDeleteIs Michel want to creat a muslim nieghbour hood,hindu nieghbour hood ,budits nieghbour ect..in Seychelles to brain wasch Seselwa and creat voilence?
Tuna factory in plans for relocation to Somalia. Morgan you idiot beyond belief.
ReplyDeleteMichel you see what Mr D'offay did also not only in torisum he has ative his gold,look at this second picture.Before Mr D'offay built his hotels this montaine behind his hotels was only with red soil.Today we can see trees growing,that mean he doesn't only care for his business,he care for the enviroment and the beauty of his country that bring tourists to visit,but you and co are destroying it for money.
ReplyDeleteJohnny
It has been announced that the company Oceania Fishery has been sold to a new company made up of 49% Seychellois and 61% Russian. The Seychellois is Mr Danny Lowlam and Russian is Mr Alexander Karmanov. It smells like another phony deal or money laundering. Foreigners taking over another local business without local authority checking the background of the investors as long as there is money! In 2005 Moscow prosecution indicted one Alexander Karmanov in multiple cases of fraud. According to prosecution, in 1993 Karmanov, a seasoned convict who already served a total of 17 years in prison. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThe Mafia...
ReplyDeleteIn 2005 Moscow prosecution indicted Alexander Karmanov in multiple cases of fraud. According to prosecution, in 1993 Karmanov, a seasoned convict who already served a total of 17 years in prison, organized a properly licensed military "museum" - to circumvent the law prohibiting trading in state awards. Karmanov, presenting himself as a legitimate museum worker, fraudulently obtained awards issued to late Ivan Kozhedub, Sergey Gorshkov and other military figures.
In the middle of 2006 two men robbed the family of the late Hero of the Soviet Union, WWII bomber pilot Yegor Chalov (1919-1983) in Novgorod. September 10, 2007 Hero of the Soviet Union, former intelligence officer Nikolay Kuznetsov, also from Novgorod Oblast, was robbed of his medals. Both cases appear to be connected by a common sales channel. Perpetrators in Yegor Chalov case were apprehended and eventually sentenced to 4 years each; the stolen medals are presumed gone without trace.Medals stolen from Kuznetsov were recovered through Moscow journalists, apparently in the course of the same operation.
Cartel’s “working horses” and Sergey Magnitsky’s murder
ReplyDeleteAlexander Udodov and Vitaly Kachour have been close friends for many years and actually are the performers of almost all businesses of Cartel. Their main activities are VAT frauds, customs fraud dealing with arms and drugs trafficking (mainly with cocaine) through the Russian customs in Saint-Petersburg, Novorossiysk, CIS countries.
Approximately since 2000, Alexander Udodov and Vitaly Kachour have started to realize a plan based on fraud schemes of state budget money as VAT compensation. Their first schemes were based on dummy export of the goods abroad. Kachur was covering customs deals making fictitious customs invoices and transport documents, Udodov was the main performer of huge sums bank transactions as payments for the imaginary export goods. He managed to use Baltic banks as his “bosses” experience (“RetumuBank”, “TrastaCommerceBank” made all transactions for 1-2 % from the total sums sending money for imaginary goods to short-lived firms accounts as VAT compensation and also to some off-shore companies.). It must be mentioned that Alexander Udodov and Vitaly Kachour have acquired that experience from Alexander Karmanov being the founder of this kind of budget fraud.
The fraud scheme getting VAT compensation for the fictitious children toys production was launched into practice in 2002 with the help of the Moscow state tax inspection department No 4 Chief, Olga Chernichouk who became Udodov close friend.
Do not be fooled....Mr Lowlam is just there as a smokescreen....He has been paid by the Mafia to pretend that a Seychellois owes 49%. James Michel can only fool himself!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the backgtound of Mr Lowlam?can someone please clarified?
ReplyDeleteCan someone clarified who the real owner of oceana fisheries previously.Is it someone in government
ReplyDeleteWas Joseph Tirant and Radley Weber fronting for somone else? Someone please clarified?
Sometime paying foreigners to do the dirty works is much better it avoid Pp direct responsibility.When things are exposed foreigne collaborators would be turned into good scapegoat of which Pp can put the blame on .
ReplyDeleteJeanne D'Arc
St Ange is saying arrival is up.He went on to say that we must literally make a celbration each two months (>Commonwealth which all ex brit clonies celebrate not as heritage but as organization of ex-brit colonies.dito to Francophonie.
ReplyDeleteSt Ange want to re-start Indain religious prccesiion in our christians streets under the guise of celebrating our Indain heritage.
Our indian,Chinese heritage is meager compare to European )0 percent)and what we have inherited from all other nations we bleneded them together to gave birth of Creole or Seychellois nATION.
hOW,sT aNGE SEEM TO BE TELLING US THAT TO CELEBRATE OUR HERITAGE(INDAIN HERITAGE,Indain expat workers are going to walk our streets in reliogous procession.
I guess the INHERITOR is Seychellois Nation,no Indain,Chinese exapt workers.Thus Our heritage must be clebrate by the inheritor Seychellois St NAge not indian,chinese or Euroepan workers.
Celebrating our heritage can be done by one single clebration by Seychellois.There is not need to celebrate this and that every two months,wasting taxpayers money for more important investment.
St Ange went on to say,our main markekt is Europe but fials to ask Pp to start direct operation to Europe by Airsey.
Instead of wasting tyxpayers money for shits,St Ange should start developing the other 50 pwercent under developed market in Europe,namely NORTH EUROEPANS (Sweden,Danemark,Norway --Europe richest countries)thus boost arrival from Europe.
The idae that Arb would replace European is a myth.and that for one single reason--Arabs are not the type of Tourists like Europeans--the latter travelling have become a tradition part of their culture.while ARBS are more SHOPPING TOURISTS.Any market must be developed and exploited but we must recognize that ARBS are not the kind of tourists which would really have a greater effect on our tourism industry.Most Arb tourists travel all inclsuive and many activites like watersport,going to diccos,bars are just not in their tradition or a religous problem.
Australi--Neuseland are potential markets--develop this amrket PP.
Jeanne D'Arc
St ange has sold his soul, now he will sell Seychelles to GOP workers. St. Ange, get serious man, you are not only making a royal ass of yourself at this point, you are embarrassing Seychelles.
ReplyDeleteWhat happen to the tourists from brazil that was suppose to fly in on Qatar airways? Another wasted trip? How many wast trips?
Mr. D'offay please come back, the Trade is lost without you.
ReplyDeleteSt Ange lacks focus and does not respond to numbers. He makes emotional responses to our tourism plight.
ReplyDeleteIncrease in arrivals is positive, but the bottom line is what counts Mr. St. Ange. If 150,000 tourist come to Seychelles, stay in tin shacks and pay euro 20.00 per night for 5 nights, is that the same as 100,000 visitors staying for 14 nights at euro 300.00 per night?
Get a life pal.
What is this Taiwanese fishing vessel is doing in our EZZ with 15 crew on board rescue to Victoria,i bet is a ilegale fishing in our EZZ invited by PP and the money go on their off shore account.They are not only stealing fish in our EZZ all over African continent,Chinese.korean,Iran,Paskistan ect...all from Asia invited by Michel to do ilegale fishing in our EZZ.
ReplyDeleteAny way those 15 crew shoul be sent back home as quickly as possibel dont want to see them on our shore.
Most of the visitors purchased a travel package overseas for holidaying in seychelles.All the packages is available on line in most western cities travel agencies.The tourists purchased their packages.the money. Stays overseas in the hotels bank accounts.
ReplyDeleteThe tourists travels yo seychelles with a small Rakay as we say in creole.just to buy a little souvenir.drinks while on the tours around the islands.Seychelles gets peanuts out of the monkeys.
The hotel foreign owners laughs all the way to the bank.Seychellios see lots of tourists but no money in their local banking system.zoo assay fair tabs least don.
Zakarie Baccarie.
E oula Zakarie Baccarie, you have changed your shirt. Welcome to reality. Pa les Gran ledan connin.
DeleteSt. Ange says money is everywhere. Then give raise of 50% St. Ange. Go tell your communist friends to put their foot where your mouth is.
ReplyDeleteThis guy zacarie Baccarie who lived in Perth Australia is a moon.he dont have a position in life.I dont think he has get off the dole since he has emigrate in the 70s.I am just wondering if he dont suffer from mental illness.I say this because when someone has lived in a democratic country such as Australia.you dont expect garbage to come from that person mouth.If you look at his arguments on face book. You will understand what I mean.
ReplyDeleteI just wonder si e pa tired oaks labs perth.
Yr best mate Eddy.
Zaccarie Baccarie.ki ou dir taba? Respond.yr posting on face book was childish an stupid.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me ashamed to see a guy who has attended school at set college to argue nonsense like you do.
Get off the dole mate and find a real job.
Yr best mate Eddy.
Baccarie never attended school at Seychelles College. He was a student at St Jean Bosco and Teachers Training College at Mont Fleuri.
DeleteThat in seychelles there are Seychellois homeless is a shame.Pp has money to build houses to cater Expat workers but no for Seychellois.Pp procliam to have been building houses each year since 1977,thus no Seychellois should be on the3 streets PP,especailly that our popualtio has literally not increase,in fact it is decreasing.
ReplyDeletePP can vote for themselves millions in life pension but does not find money to give each Seychellois family a dissent life.Money to help Somali with Pp so call"Blue economy "but no money for Seychellois welfare.
Sto robbing our country Pp.
Jeanne D'Arc