The two-day workshop at Nature Seychelles’ headquarters, Roche Caïman, is entitled Adding value to your business through environmental management systems (EMS), and it has brought together owners and staff of hotels and others in the hospitality industry.

Among its other aims is helping hotels to make cost savings in energy.
The workshop has been organised by Nature Seychelles and Empretec Mauritius in partnership with the Seychelles Hospitality and Tourism Association.

Seychelles Tourism Board (STB) marketing director Alain St Ange opened the session in the presence of Nature Seychelles’ chief executive Dr Nirmal Shah.

It is being led by Clara Veerapatren, lead auditor and operations manager for the International Register of Certificated Auditors, and Irshadally Boodheea, director of business development services for Empretec Mauritius.

Empretec is a non-governmental organisation that groups professionals, managers and entrepreneurs from various spheres of activity in Mauritius and the East African region. An integrated capacity-building programme, it operates with the guidance of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

It is designed to promote and inject entrepreneurial skills and attitudes in small and medium-sized enterprises, enabling them to become competitive, creative, innovative and visionary global market players.

In his address, Mr St Ange said without Seychelles’ unique environment there would be no tourism here.
“Today tourism is the pillar of the Seychelles economy, and a new emphasis has been put on this industry since it was placed under the portfolio of President James Michel,” he said.

This underlines the importance of the industry to our country, he added.
“Our environment and its diversity attract many visitors to our shores, and my appeal to Nature Seychelles is to continue to work closely with the STB to better promote our unique environment to the world,” said Mr St Ange.

Mr Boodheea said in Mauritius, Empretec has carried out EMS projects in small hotels.

“These hotels were able to get benefits by protecting their environment and also create employment for other people,” he said.

Empretec has decided to hold these workshops in regional countries that depend mainly on their environment, including their maritime resources, he added.

It is vital for the tourism industry to realise the importance of the environment as tourists are becoming more conscious of their surroundings and nowadays most prefer environmentally-friendly countries, Mr Boodheea said.
The workshop focuses on introducing EMS – which allow for the running of environmental programmes in a comprehensive, planned and documented manner – into tourism businesses.

These systems form an integral part of international environmental certification and standards such as the ISO system.
Dr Shah, who has had experience in using the environmental standard ISO 14001, said the workshop will enable those taking part to approach an EMS as a do-it-yourself activity.

“Since many small and medium enterprises have difficulty in putting in place systems for the ISO standard, this programme can provide a pain-free entry point into what could be the first critical phase of meeting the standard,” he said.