Winner of Seychelles Tourism Board Facebook photo contest earns Paris trip

Jose Uranie is the winner of the ‘Best of Creole Cuisine’ Facebook photography competition organized by the Seychelles Tourism Board (STB).

Mr. Uranie has won two return tickets to Paris onboard Air Seychelles – a prize sponsored by the Seychelles Tourism Board.

His photo was among the Top 5 photos that made it to the final voting of the competition, which ended Friday, August 18.

The photo captioned ‘The Grilled Red Snapper’ gathered 304 liked in the final voting. It was depicting the red snapper grilled the creole way with lemon wedges on the side, salted fish and ‘bred mouroum’ [Moringa] curry cooked with coconut milk and cinnamon leaves, accompanied by green papaya chutney and fresh chili.

The Facebook photography competition is an annual contest organized by the Seychelles Tourism Board, with a different theme chosen each year.

This year it was aimed at getting a diverse selection of photos showcasing the Seychelles cuisine, to boost the organization’s image library and to support the promotion of one of the destination’s unique factor – its Creole food.

Open only to citizens of Seychelles, the competition did not have any age limit. Participants were encouraged to capture the creativity and uniqueness of the Seychelles’ mouth-watering Creole cuisine.

Facebook fans were given 24 hours to vote for their favorite snapshots out of a weekly selection of the best photos, over a period of five weeks. The five weekly winners made up the final selection, where fans were again given 24 hours to vote, to decide on the three winners.

STB’s Director of Digital Marketing, Mr. Vahid Jacob said 56 people registered for the photo contest and 31 photos were submitted in total.

One key element of the competition was the number of Facebook likes the photos were able to attract, which was the determining factor of which gets to emerge as the weekly, as well as overall winners.

While STB said it would have loved to have more submissions, it is satisfied with the efforts and creativity displayed by those who took part in the competition, as well as with the number of people who took the time to vote.

“STB has achieved its target which was to have a good selection of photos depicting the Creole cuisine for its image library. These images will now be used for our marketing activities in different parts of the world,” said Mr. Jacob.

Maria Gopal won the second prize with 261 likes for her photo titled ‘The art of creole food’ depicting a mouth-watering octopus coconut curry and golden apple salad with rice served Creole-style in a coconut shell – not forgetting some chili and lime on the side. Mrs. Gopal wins two nights on a half-board basis for two persons at Le Meridien Fishermen’s Cove in a Junior suite.

The third prize has been won by Stephanie Hoareau with her photo captioned ‘Typiquement [typically] Creole’ depicting a dish of fresh filleted job fish with sweet potatoes on the side. The photo garnered 248 likes in the final voting. Ms. Hoareau also wins two nights on half board basis for two persons, this time at the Savoy Seychelles Resort & Spa.