Seychelles Minister of Tourism Alain St.Ange added this commentary. “
In Madrid as FITUR 2016 got underway a Tourism Ministerial meeting was called by Tabel Rifai, the Secretary General of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) to discuss tourism and security.  The idea for the Ministers of Tourism to stop being bye-standers anymore when their tourism industry was under assault was an idea floated by Minister Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture in a letter addressed to the Secretary General Of the UNWTO.

But today as we see the continued effects of instability in the tourism industry as a result of insecurity or the perception of insecurity we have to ask if the world of tourism is doing enough to sensitize the press on how the tourism industry is affected when would be terrorists are given airtime to vent their anger at the world and hard working members of the community of nations.

See recent post on Facebook by Werner Gesser
This message just reached me.  It’s a letter from a  German Sharm el Sheikh attraction operator to his/her clients and friends.

The letter reads:
Sinai Divers will close in Sharm : We are so sorry to inform you, that we will have to close temporarily our diving Center in Sharm el Sheikh as of the 1st of April 2016.
It was an extremely difficult decision for us to take and we hesitated for a long time to make this announcement. During the past three years, the economical situation in Sinai and especially in Sharm el Sheikh has become increasingly difficult. Since the incident last October the situation became even worse with all direct flights being cancelled.

Many Hotels and Diving Centers had to close down in the last few months. We were hopeful that the direct flights from Europe would resume at the end of March, but unfortunately that is not the case. The major tour operators will not operate any flights again before November 2016. Without regular and sufficient bookings it became impossible for us to continue our daily operation.

We will inform you of any changes and should the flights to Sharm restart earlier than expected we will reopen the Center for sure. The Sinai Divers Backpacker Center in Dahab, the Oasis in Marsa Alam and the Center in Aqaba Jordan will continue operating as usual.

Of course we will stay in touch with you over Facebook and keep you updated with airline news, events happening in and around Sharm and post interesting articles and stories.
Rolf & Petra