(Seychelles News Agency) - The Seychelles’ Tourism Department has launched the second edition of a visitors guide filled with safety tips and information about maritime leisure activities in the island nation.

Launched on Monday at the tourism head office, the ‘Beach and Sea Safety Guide’ provides tips about beach and sea safety, information about marine flora and fauna as well as essential and emergency telephone numbers.

With the recent increase in visitor arrivals, the department feels that there is a pressing need to educate visitors on safety measures they should take while on their holiday. Tourist arrivals are up about 10 percent in 2019 compared to this point in 2018.

“Most tourists come to Seychelles to enjoy our beach and waters and hence they engage in maritime activities during their stay. It is our role to look for ways to inform them as we want them to enjoy these activities safely,” said Didier Dogley, the Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine.

He added that “when visitors come to Seychelles, they tend to believe that they are in paradise and hence there is no risk, forgetting that wherever you go in the world, one needs to take necessary measures to ensure one’s safety.”

Put together in a user-friendly manner, the guide not only contains safety tips but also has a list of places that tourists can do their marine activities.

The ‘Beach and Sea Safety Guide’ provides tips about beach and sea safety, information about marine flora and fauna. (Salifa Karapetyan, Seychelles News Agency) Photo License: CC-BY

Available at tourism bureaus and offices, tourism establishments, tour operators and other agencies linked to tourism, the guide is an updated version of one that came out in 2014. Apart from information previously listed in the older guide, the new version has safety tips about poisonous marine fauna and flora of Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, as well as added information about sharks.

The director for risk management at the department, Philomena Hollanda, said that her team and she “have made the guide as complete as possible so that the general information is available.”

“We cannot revise the guide each time there is something new. To make updated information constantly available, we issue advisories and flyers which are sent to all tourism establishments and partners which complement the guide,” she said.

The guide will also be available in digital format on the ministry’s website. Hollanda said that both hardcopy and digital format of the guide has been produced as Seychelles gets different categories of tourists.

“The printed guide also serves as a marketing tool as it contains photos of Seychelles, which show the beauty of the country. This means that a visitor can take the guide home as a souvenir and show the photos to family and friends,” she added.

With digital copies of the guide available, the department has printed only 10,000 copies. A little over $4,400 has been set aside to deal with expenses linked to the production of the guide.

The ‘Beach and Sea Safety Guide’ compliments another that one came out last year providing useful tips to visitors going on nature trails and walks.

“It is important that the safety aspect is observed both at sea and on land,” said Hollanda.