Tourism Seychelles, the Seychelles Ports Authority, Seychelles Police, Seychelles Licensing Authority, taxi drivers, and travel agents, have met to discuss the procedures at the newly launched Cruise Village.
The meeting, hosted at the Docklands Auditorium in Victoria, explored strategies to tackle unlicensed service providers and find activities to entertain cruise ship passengers who come ashore.
The Village opened at the Island Development Company car park next to the Port of Victoria on October 24 and will remain until the cruise season ends.
“The aim of the Cruise Village is to discourage unlicensed providers from competing with the licensed ones once the cruise ship season begins,” said the Principal Secretary for Tourism Seychelles, Sherin Francis.
This year, tourism service providers at the Cruise Village must adhere to a new set of rules, such as completing a mandatory registration at Tourism Seychelles to obtain an identification badge and keeping to allocated spaces in the Village. Service providers were also informed that, should they fail to comply with the new regulations, they may receive a warning, suspension, or revocation of their licences or denial of access to the Cruise Village.
On October 24, the SH Diana was the first ship to arrive in Port Victoria for the season. The island welcomed 40 cruise ship calls in Port Victoria earlier this year, and expects to accommodate 40 more liners, including the MSC Splendida.
