By: Hafsatu Z Bangura
The Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs and its agencies with support from the World Bank celebrated the United Nations World Tourism Day with its theme “Rethinking Tourism, the impact of violence and conflict on tourism, tourism for Peace.”
In her keynote address, the Minister of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, Dr Memunatu Pratt said the theme for this year’s celebration was a deliberate attempt by the Ministry to set up their awareness raising campaign and change the mindset of young folks about the dangers of conflicts and it’s consequences.
She went on to say that the 27th of September every year is regarded by United Nations World Tourism Organization as a special day for the celebration of World Tourism Day since 1980, with Sierra Leone being a fully paid member in 2019, she continued that the day was chosen to promote public awareness on the immense contributions of Tourism and the Socio-economic growth of nations and to promote Socio-cultural cohesion globally as well as to reflect on the challenges faced by the industry.
She maintained that Tourism and Peace have been complimentary factors impacting each other, a positive development in one leads to the same while Negative development also drives in negative impact.
She added that Tourism activities have the potential to bridge settlement across areas of conflict, saying that there was the need to enhance the awareness raising campaign on tourism activities and its inter-relationship impact on peace to maximize society’s benefit from our positive relation, a feature she said this year’s commemoration intends to achieve.
Speaking on the negative impact of violence on the tourism sector Mrs Pratt said Sierra Leone as an emerging destination has experienced a significant drop in its trend of tourist arrivals and receipts during the 11-year Civil War Ebola, and Covid-19 crisis period, as she said Socio-political situation hinders stability and the contributions of the tourism sector to the national economy.
In the past years, she said, the country has experienced Socio-cultural tensions including violence among youths, at community levels and democratic processes including the recent August 10th 2022 vilest that she said has affected areas of the country.
She went on that the tourism sector relies on peace to thrive as she says the tourism alphabet has the potential to bridge settlement across areas of conflict, it has been promoting their cultural linkages across regions, ethnic boundaries, and social cohesion through a common national identity, understanding and tolerance for another background among citizens.
Furthermore, she said tourism continued to promote universal values, enhance climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, help rural communities to hold their unique natural and Cultural heritage, support conservation projects, including those safeguarding endangered species and restored lost traditional values.
She highlighted the significant gains by the sector and called for concerted efforts across the board to ensure that those gains are sustained.
In line with the SLP New Direction People’s Manifesto and the Medium Term National Development Plan, has over the past four years to uplift and resuscitate the once dormant sector with the following achievements, improving policy and legal environment, reviewing of Tourism developed Act 1990, tourism governance and financial management strategy completed, Eco-tourism Development Plan and more are all success stories the Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs she said.
She concluded by extending thanks and appreciation to President His Excellency Julius Maada Bio for the support and passion he has for the development of Tourism in the country and the world Bank.