{"id":6962,"date":"2023-06-27T23:53:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T19:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc:443\/?p=6962"},"modified":"2023-06-30T14:52:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T10:52:05","slug":"seychelles-and-colombo-unite-to-redefine-travel-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/?p=6962","title":{"rendered":"Seychelles and Colombo unite to redefine travel experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On June 20th, the Department of Tourism embarked on a historic journey to Bandaranaike International Airport on Air Seychelles\u2019 inaugural flight, marking the beginning of the twice-weekly flights from Seychelles to Colombo, Sri Lanka.<br><br>Among the 110 passengers on board were esteemed officials \u2013 Mrs. Sherin Francis, Principal Secretary for Tourism, Mrs. Bernadette Willemin, Director for Destination Marketing, and Mr. Sandy Benoiton, CEO of Air Seychelles.&nbsp;They were accompanied&nbsp;by the&nbsp;Principal Secretary for Sports,&nbsp;Mr.&nbsp;Ralph Jean-Louis, along with a host of valued trade partners.<br><br>Touching down in Colombo at the break of dawn, the flight was greeted by a water cannon salute, and passengers&nbsp;were treated to a&nbsp;colourful&nbsp;performance by the Sri Lankan team&nbsp;at the airport.&nbsp;The Sri Lankan Tourism Board extended a gracious welcome, marking the beginning of an exciting collaboration.<br><br>To celebrate the occasion,&nbsp;the Department of Tourism, in partnership with Air&nbsp;Seychelles, hosted a trade event&nbsp;on June 21st, where&nbsp;Mrs.&nbsp;Francis and Mrs.&nbsp;Willemin unveiled the boundless possibilities&nbsp;the&nbsp;newfound connection offers, bridging the gap to previously untapped markets via the Colombo route. The partnership not only serves as a strategic move to unlock markets that were once challenging to access, but it also provides an&nbsp;opportunity for Seychelles to learn from Sri Lanka&#8217;s best practices and elevate its own tourism industry to greater heights.<br><br>June 22nd&nbsp;witnessed a moment of camaraderie as Mrs.&nbsp;Sherin Francis and Mrs.&nbsp;Bernadette Willemin paid a courtesy visit to&nbsp;Sri Lanka\u2019s Minister for Tourism,&nbsp;Mr.&nbsp;Harin Fernando, accompanied by the Consulate of Seychelles for Sri Lanka, Dr.&nbsp;Udeni Arawgoda,&nbsp;The&nbsp;Chairman, Board of Directors of Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau,Mr&nbsp;Chalaka Gajabahu&nbsp;and&nbsp;Director General for Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Mr. Nalin Perera.&nbsp;The&nbsp;fruitful meeting affirmed the benefits awaiting all parties involved in this transformative partnership. As a token of goodwill, the two ministries exchanged souvenirs, cementing the bond between Seychelles and Sri Lanka.<br><br>With the launch of these new flights,&nbsp;Seychelles and Colombo have&nbsp;set the stage&nbsp;to redefine travel experiences. With shared aspirations, these two paradisiacal destinations have united to offer&nbsp;travellers&nbsp;unparalleled adventures and endless possibilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 20th, the Department of Tourism embarked on a historic journey to Bandaranaike International Airport on Air Seychelles\u2019 inaugural flight, marking the beginning of the twice-weekly flights from Seychelles to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Among the 110 passengers on board were esteemed officials \u2013 Mrs. Sherin Francis, Principal Secretary for Tourism, Mrs. Bernadette Willemin, Director [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6962"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6968,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6962\/revisions\/6968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tourism.gov.sc\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}