Guinean envoy eyes closer tourism ties
Diplomacy |Author: George Thande | February 18, 2014, Tuesday @ 17:29| 2734 views
Ambassador Fatoumata Kaba speaking at State House, Seychelles (Mervyn Marie, Seychelles News Agency)
(Seychelles News Agency) - There is scope for closer cooperation between Guinea and Seychelles, the west African nation’s ambassador to the Indian Ocean island nation Fatoumata Kaba said today.
She was speaking after presenting her credentials to the Seychelles President James Michel, with whom she had discussed the creation of a proposed Seychelles-Guinea joint commission to work on priority areas of cooperation such as education, environment, tourism and air transport.
She expressed her thanks to the Seychelles authorities for offering Guinean nationals in the island nation a warm welcome and environment to be able to integrate into the community.
The ambassador also met the Seychelles tourism and culture minister Alain St. Ange.
St Ange expressed the Seychelles’ appreciation for the support Guinea has given to the island nation over many years, particularly in the field of education, and invited Guinea to send a troupe to the Carnival International de Victoria festival due to be staged on the islands in April.
"I really hope your tourism minister will personally lead a small cultural troupe from Guinea to be at the carnival,” said St Ange.
His ministry said in a release that the carnival in Seychelles remains unique in many ways, saying the best and most popular carnivals of the world come together in Seychelles and all parade side by side followed by cultural troupes from the community of nations.
| A performance by Indonesian dancers at the opening of the Carnaval International de Victoria, 2013 (George Thande, Seychelles News Agency) |
St Ange said many destinations also use the carnival to promote their own tourism industries.“Today the Carnaval International de Victoria is known by the international media houses as the ‘Carnival of Carnivals’ because of the togetherness it brings when all carnivals come together once a year for this event in Seychelles,” the ministry said.
"It is like a tourism trade fair, but here, it is the country's culture being presented. It is the people of the respective countries who are being put forward instead of brochures at cocktails. It is today accepted that participating countries at the carnival in the Seychelles have more access to international press than they can ever have at any tourism trade fair," he told ambassador Kaba.
The Carnaval International de Victoria takes place between April 25- 27, 2014. Carnival delegations from Brazil, China, Germany , Britain, Indonesia, South Africa, Reunion island, Mozambique, Rodrigues, South Korea, Italy, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Bangladesh will be participating in the annual event.