Meet him anywhere and very soon you will be inundated, overwhelmed even, with Alain St. Ange’s infinite passion for innovation in the tourism marketing of Seychelles.

He pontificates ceaselessly about new markets and new-fangled, but damn simple, strategies for making inroads into them. He orates for hours on end about how that simplicity is Seychelles main marketing tool. He extols the potential of all Seychellois living overseas as key promoters of Seychelles uniqueness and he is ready to give all of them a go at being Seychelles tourism ambassadors as long as they demonstrate that they can play that role effectively.

So passionate is the Chairman of the Seychelles Tourism Board Marketing Team that he goes on and on about the tireless work he and his team are doing to conquer, by hook or by crook, unchartered tourism sources.

Joining forces with detractors of yesteryears and pulling together young and old, rich and poor, public and private sector, St. Ange has formed his own rainbow coalition for tourism and there is no stopping him.

A taxi driver on Praslin, from an opposing political camp (opposing to St Ange’s political camp), said of St. Ange that he is the hardest working man in Seychelles.

When a man is so passionate about his work and is regarded by all and sundry as being overly hard working, when a man receives so warm and so hard a handshake from the nation’s President (as was shown in the media recently), that man is on to something. Keep it up St. Ange you must be doing something good.

Seychelles tourism figures for 2009 were very good. The International Monetary Fund had predicted a drop of as many as 25% over 2008. However, Seychelles marketing strategies were available to avert the drop. Almost as many tourists came in 2009 as they did in 2008 although all around the world the industry was hit extremely hard.

Was that just a stroke of luck or was it the hard work of St. Ange and his bunch at the Seychelles Tourism Board. Time will tell as only time can tell. However, the nation will be watching the 2010 figures. If St. Ange and STB have got the strategy right, as evidence appears to be showing right now, then the nation will not fall far from its tourism predictions for the current year.

We must admit - the tourism ambassador thing is a brilliant idea. It appears that many Seychellois living abroad are now volunteering to become tourism ambassadors... We also understand that St Ange and STB want to establish Tourism Information Offices all over the country to allow Seychellois living right here, in Seychelles, to become locally based tourism ambassadors.

The idea is the following and it is damn simple. If you have a strategically located business in a district anywhere in Seychelles, STB will give you the franchise and the material and the training you need for your business to also become a local tourist information office. Great move St. Ange!

One little flaw that St. Ange has though, is that recently he has started talking in the first person singular - “I”. My advice to him is that he should revert to the first person plural. Success is always a team effort and to underscore self when many “non-selves” are also trying just as hard, is a big mistake that can be extremely costly in the long run