22 March 2024
Revered global tourism guru and most widely known tourism personality of the Indian Ocean, Alain St. Ange was welcomed in Mamoudzou, the capital city of Mayotte, the French overseas region and department by the island’s main press, whom he granted interviews on arrival.
The former Minister of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine of the Seychelles, arrived in Mayotte on a luxury cruise ship where he is currently based as he delivers lectures in the different countries where the vessel docks along its route from Durban, South Africa to Seychelles.
St. Ange has been on a speaking tour of several destinations along the Indian Ocean coast such as; Maputo and the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Ilha de Moçambique (Mozambique Island) in Mozambique, Mayotte, Comoros, Zanzibar and Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, and Mombasa in Kenya before disembarking in his mid-ocean island of the Seychelles.
Arriving to a rich Mayotte welcome with flowers decorating the gangway from landing jetty, while a Maore cultural group in traditional light blue dresses sang and played their drums to entertain the disembarking passengers as they made their way onto the island, Alain who currently heads his own ‘Saint Ange Tourism Consultancy’ took time to address the waiting press.
Speaking to the editors of the main print media and the anchor of island’s main TV Station, Alain St. Ange emphasised the importance of tourism as an industry for Mayotte and the rest of the Indian Ocean’s Vanilla Islands.
St. Ange was the founding President of the Vanilla Islands and the only one to serve two back-to-back mandates as the President of the six Islands Group comprising of Reunion, Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles, Comoros and Mayotte.
He touched on cruise tourism and implored the island’s press to analyse the returns to the country, and to the private sector trade. He also spoke about the need for stability and security as essential ingredients for a succesful tourism industry.
On the Vanilla Islands Organisation Alain St. Ange said that it remains relevant today as it was when it was launched so many years ago. He commended the successes of the Regional Organisation in cruise tourism, but said more needed to be done to ensure the islanders of all the six-member islands benefited directly from their tourism industry.
Alain St. Ange will again be on Mayotte tomorrow, Saturday 23 March before sailing into Comoros on Sunday 24 March 2024.
