The Sustainable Seychelles Certification programme will soon be extended to tour operators and restaurants, a top tourism official said on Wednesday.

As part of the implementation process, the Tourism Department met with the representatives of tour operators and restaurants to explain the programme and the necessary criteria.

The Seychelles Sustainable Tourism Label (SSTL) was established in 2012 and later rebranded as Sustainable Seychelles Certification, which classified and certified hotel accommodation establishments of all sizes. It is a voluntary certification scheme that recognises and rewards tourism businesses implementing best practices in sustainability within their operations.

The principal secretary for Tourism, Sherin Francis, described the programme as a necessary tool to recognise the efforts being made by these establishments in the tourism industry to become more sustainable.

"We realise that becoming more sustainable is a journey, and we need to recognise the work being done by these establishments to support and encourage them to continue on this path. In the past there was only the certification, now we have three different tiers of recognition before getting the final certification," she said.

"At present, there are 25 tourism accommodation establishments participating in the programme. However, during this past year, through the addition of the recognition element, we have been able to add about 52 other establishments to the programme. These are establishments that are in the process of transitioning to more sustainable practices, some have already earned the required points and are in the final process before they are certified," Francis added.

She said that for the last decade "our focus was mainly on accommodation establishments, now it is time to enlarge the scope to include other sectors. We will start with tour operators and restaurants."

The programme will be adapted for tour operators and restaurants with relevant criteria in place.

Internationally recognised, the Sustainable Seychelles Certificate also holds recognition status by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), which does the third party assessments of establishment.

The main aims of the Sustainable Seychelles Certificate is mainstreaming sustainability within the tourism sector to safeguard local natural assets as well as the industry's future growth and prosperity.

Tourism is the top contributor to the economy of Seychelles, a group of 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean.

Francis said a support group will be created in which people who participated in the programme can share their best practices to those just joining to facilitate the transition into the programme.

"At the end of the day, if Seychelles wants to be seen as a sustainable destination, it is not enough for only the accommodation sector to transition, all sectors must be included," Francis concluded.

One of the participants at the meeting, the operations manager at the La Digue Island Lodge, Albina Tissa, described the programme as something very positive. The establishment has already implemented the accommodation component and Tissa said it would transition to the restaurant component as well.

"I think it is something very good as we are a very old hotel so to be able to have our clients coming back and for people to have more confident with our services. It is a very good programme and now that we have the criteria, we will be able to work on it easily," added Tissa.