Rather than boosting tourism in a big way to earn badly needed foreign exchange, the tiny Indian ocean island nation of Seychelles wants only a slow growth of the industry to protect environment for sustainable growth of its economy.

With white sand beaches, blue sky and beautiful tropical scenery, Seychelles attracts hundreds of visitors every day, bringing tens of thousands of hard currency to the country.

Latest official figures showed that Seychelles, with land area of only 455 square kilometers scattered over 115 islands, received a record 140,627 tourists, bringing about 200 million U.S. dollars to the country in 2006 despite the Chikungunya epidemic threat and high prices for hotels and other accommodations.

The tourism rebound reflects the opening-up of the local market to other airlines such as Emirates and Qatar airways in 2005, a relatively stable exchange rate between Euro and Rupee, Seychelles' currency, and the construction of new and luxury establishments, which has helped Seychelles to ditch its former reputation for providing three-star service at five-star prices.

The island nation is accustomed to receiving more visitors than its population of 82,000, most of whom are mixed French, Africans and Indian offsprings.

The Seychelles archipelago covers a vast tract of the western Indian Ocean in an exclusive economic zone of over 1.3 square kilometers.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Seychelles Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Patrick Pillay said the 2006 figure was near the peak the tiny nation could offer to foreign visitors due to environmental degradation concern.

Seychelles is noted for its sound environmental protection policies and its land under protection was over 50 percent of its total area, the highest proportion of protected land in the world.

HIGH-LEVEL TOURISTS

With the limitation for further development of tourism, the government policy was to attract what he called high-level tourists, namely the rich or richest visitors around the world, Pillay said.

Advocating eco-tourism, Seychelles President James Michel once described that natural environment as butter and bread for Seychelles and environment degradation meant less visitors and fewer hard currency.

Although tuna replaced tourism as Seychelles' leading foreign exchange earner in 2000, developments in the tourism sector have a far greater impact on the wider economy because of its direct links to a range of service activities.

The opening of the international airport in 1971 laid the foundations for future expansion of tourism industry and the number of visitors reached 130,865 in 1996, compared with just 771in 1967.

The government now hopes to boost its strategy of low-volume but high-value tourism through encouraging new investment in the luxury sector while making modest changes to the sector's institutional framework

With tourism and integrated industries including transport, services and communications accounting for some 20 percent of its revenue, the government spared no efforts for environment protection in the context of hard currency shortage due to lack of other industries specially agriculture and manufacturing.

Seychelles would like to see more tourists coming to see its beauty and to enjoy the nature in the year 2007 but not beyond 200,000 by 2010 due to environment concern, the Director of the National Statistics Bureau Laura Ahtime told the media on Wednesday.

Vice President Joseph Belmont, who is also the minister for tourism, also cautioned against too many tourists on the islands, saying that Seychelles planned to attract more tourists while ensuring that the sustainability of the industry was not compromised.

Source: Xinhua