Minister: Forum of ‘Africa Continental Festival’ aligns well with national drive

TANZANIA expects to market and sell its cultural tourism products within Africa and beyond through the coming ‘Africa Continental Festival’ slated for July this year in France.

The event comes at a time when Natural Resources and Tourism Ministry is capitalising on the country’s cultural tourism that is expanding to attract more tourists in the country.

The revelation was made yesterday in Dar es Salaam by Natural Resources and Tourism Minister, Dr Hamisi Kigwangalla, adding that it was the first time for the country to take part in the festivities.

He expressed the country’s commitment and participation, where over 50 African countries are set to take part. “As a country, we have been honoured to prepare the festival grounds because of our mammoth cultural heritage,” further stressed Dr Kigwangalla on the sidelines of the meeting.

This is the first time for the organising committee to hold such a preparatory meeting in the country being represented with seven member States of Senegal, Kenya, Algeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania as the envisioned host country.

He said the ‘Africa Continental Festival’ has come at the right time when Tanzania was also organising a National Cultural Heritage month dubbed, ‘Urithi Festival,’ to take place every September starting this year.

“We will use the coming continental festival to showcase our heritages to others who would learn our cultural products and may wish to visit our tourist attractions,” he further said.

The minister hinted that tourism sector has been growing and promising to the extent of inviting many tourists annually in the country. However, he pointed out that new strategies are still in place to attract more tourists from areas like South Eastern Asia countries of China, Korea and Japan who are not many in the country.

“For China alone, the Ministry wants to have about 200,000 tourists every year in the next three to four years,” he further said. Eloi Coly, Curator of House of Slaves Gorée Site Manager in Senegal, who is coordinating the Continental Festival, said every country would decide on the kind of cultural heritage it wants to showcase or express in valuable way.

“In this four-day event, we shall offer space for Africa to express itself because normally people in the West look at Africa with a bad perception that it is a continent of diseases, poverty and so on…so it’s necessary to tell the world what we are, and where we come from,” Mr Coly said.

On his side, National Museum Director General Professor Audax Mabulla pointed out that the festival would not only attract new tourists into the country, but would also pull in investors to invest in the tourism sector, as well as others considering the fact that the government is now emphasizing industrialisation in the country.