In May, the entire NCT team gave a warm welcome their new director Jean-Marc Mocellin. A New Caledonian by birth, he has returned home after a lengthy and successful period in the international hospitality business.
Jean-Marc Mocellin succeeds Jean-Michel Foutrein as Director of New Caledonia Tourism (NCT).
With over 35 years’ experience in high-end hospitality in Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia, he is proud and delighted to return to his roots to play a role in promoting tourism growth in his native country and to share in future achievements.
Trained in the luxury hospitality sector in Europe, Jean-Marc Mocellin began his career with the prestigious Sheraton hotel chain and was involved in the chain’s development program in Africa based on opening new hotels (Benin, Nigeria and Gabon).
He quickly rose through the ranks and was appointed to senior executive roles; six years later, he joined another leading world player in luxury hospitality, the Shangri-La chain. With the Shangri-La Group, he worked in Malaysia and then Fiji, a move taking him back to his native Oceania and a fresh experience of Melanesian culture.
After four years in Fiji, he set off for French Polynesia where he spent 23 years as manager of the InterContinental Tahiti Resort, formerly known as Beachcomber Resort Tahiti.
His commitment to Polynesian tourism led to his involvement in promoting its development in a range of sectoral negotiations with the government.
He took over as head of the InterContinental Huan Hin Resort in Thailand, remaining until 2017, but instead of going on to a hotel group posting in Vietnam, he decided to head back to the country of his birth, a country he had always kept his eye on from afar.
Jean-Marc Mocellin is however very aware of the many current and upcoming tourism-focused projects, such as promoting New Caledonia as a destination in China and implementing the tourism workshops’ “Services and Recreation Development Strategy”, including setting up a tourism development agency. Long-term commitment is required for other initiatives, such as enhancing the visibility of New Caledonia as an attractive tourist destination in key markets (France, Australia, New Zealand and Japan), ensuring increased internet destination awareness, promotional campaigns abroad and support for local events with international appeal…
In his own words: “After many years’ experience in high-end hospitality abroad, I have at last come back home to play my part in developing tourism in New Caledonia. During my first weeks in office, I gained a clear picture of the many initiatives implemented by the highly committed existing team. But there are plenty of other ambitious projects requiring ongoing action and effort to create a favourable environment for solid growth in our tourism industry and they have been clearly defined by over 500 local professionals during the tourism workshops. The outcome of this valuable collaboration was the “Services and Recreation Tourism Development Strategy”, which constitutes my roadmap and my primary task. The stakes are immense but I have the feeling that all the players involved and the
destination itself are now ripe to commit the interest and engagement required to make tourism a vital and competitive industry for our economic diversification”.
About New Caledonia
Over 20,000km from mainland France, New Caledonia is a French Territory located in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, east of
Australia. The South Pacific archipelago is made up of a Main Island, 450kms long, surrounded by the Loyalty Islands to the east
(Ouvéa, Lifou and Maré), the Bélep archipelago to the north and the Isle of Pines to the south. Protected from the ocean by an
immense coral barrier reef, New Caledonia has the largest lagoon in the world, registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in
July 2008. The island is ranked fifth in the world for its biological wealth.
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(Source: New Caledonia Tourism Press Release 10 July 2017)
