The Seychelles islands have announced that they are bringing back the Miss Seychelles beauty pageant next year. This will open the door for them to partner with the annual Miss Southern African International and the Miss World Pageant.

Miss Seychelles will return on the country’s events calendar after being dormant for a couple of years and is now expected to make a dashing comeback in July 2012.

It is the Seychelles Tourism Board that will now host and organize the pageant, which was once a popular event in Seychelles and in which many young ladies looked forward to participating. It had been automatic that the winning beauty queen participates in the Miss World Contest as part of her winning package, but the Seychelles Tourism Board has said that they are taking the international participation a few steps forward.

Now, the islands’ winner will also take part in the Miss Southern African International, as well as become the face of the country at some of the tourism trade fairs overseas.

The Miss Southern African International’s organizers themselves approached Seychelles earlier this year to support and send its representative to the inaugural edition contest, which was held in Zambia on July 3. Since Seychelles did not have a reigning princess, it chose to rather support the pageant by sponsoring a prize for the winner which was a one-week stay in the Seychelles, with accommodation at a Le Meridien hotel.

The winner was Miss Tanzania, Nelly Kamwelu, followed by Paulina Malulu of Namibi as 1st runner up and Percivia Chimfwembe of Zambia as 2nd runner up. Other participants of the inaugural Miss Southern African International came from Lesotho, Congo, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

The pageant is very much geared towards charity and raising awareness on the plight of the less fortunate, and the new Miss Southern African International has become the ambassador for the Breast and Cervical Cancer Network Zambia. She was presented with her special pink sash on the night of her crowning by a cancer survivor.

The Chief Executive of the Seychelles Tourism Board, Alain St.Ange, has said that it is important for Seychelles to get its own Beauty Queen, because it would help to raise the islands’ profile and in so doing help increase the visibility of Seychelles.

“We definitely need a face to represent our beautiful country at such international contests. It is also nice when we will be able to join the list of tourism destinations coming to tourism trade fairs with their winning contestants and in so doing increase visibility of our country. We have many intelligent and pretty young ladies, we need to open new doors for them as they will help us in our mission of promoting our country,” Alain St.Ange said.