For the second year in a row, Seychelles has been awarded the Best Destination Management Award.

Seychelles received the good news during the closing ceremony of the 2013 Routes Africa Aviation Forum that took place in Kampala, Uganda between July 6-9.

The award was collected by the team of Seychelles delegates headed by the outgoing chief executive of the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB), Elsia Grandcourt. Other member of the delegation included Gilbert Faure, chief executive of the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA), Glynn Burridge, the STB’s tourism consultant and chief copywriter, and Amy Michel, the STB’s senior marketing executive.

The Seychelles team attended the three-day event which consisted of strategy sessions addressing some of the challenges facing the aviation and tourism industries before engaging in one on one meetings with representatives of Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways and Turkish Airlines to discuss future plans for air connectivity and collaboration.

The latest award for Best Destination Management was voted for by members of the global airline community at Routes which saw the participation of over 300 delegates at the Speke Resort, Kampala, Uganda.

"Winning this award at Routes for the second year running is a vindication of our combined efforts to market Seychelles as a tourism destination and we are delighted to have our hard work recognised with this prestigious award," Mrs Grandcourt said.

The Minister for Tourism and Culture, Alain St Ange, has congratulated the STB for this latest accolade.

"Seychelles is today visible as never before. We know that the annual marketing strategy meeting held between the tourism board’s marketing team, our overseas Seychellois managers and members of the tourism industry keeps us focused on the way forward and the work we are doing based on decisions at these annual meetings in keeping Seychelles relevant as a tourism destination. We have tacked our marketing with intelligence, we knew that promoting only our sun, sea and sand will not suffice anymore as unique selling points so we embarked into the world of events to increase visibility of our islands for the benefit of those involved in the tourism industry. Today we can see that our chosen path is proven to be working when we look at the performance of other destinations," Minister St Ange said.

As Seychelles is winning such recognition on the world stage and as the island's tourism board is being congratulated for its work in getting Seychelles more visible, more known and more sought after, the minister said that it was important for the country to look at areas brought up by the tourism trade as new challenges such as the level of cleanliness of the country and the spate of insecurity being felt today.