MINISTER for Natural Resources and Tourism Ms Angellah Kairuki, has underscored the need for the National Museums of Tanzania (NMT) to increase creativity by hosting a wide range of antiquities exhibitions.
She also challenged the NMT to conduct more research and make public its findings in order to promote it nationally and internationally.
The minister made the remarks on Friday at the NMT as part of her routine visit of all the institutions under the ministry, after recently being appointed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan to head the docket.
“It is crucial to develop more creative ideas about how to host a variety of exhibitions. There are almost 120 tribes in Tanzania; with additional research, we can add more artifacts to our antiquities museum,” she said.
She added that in order to boost production and efficiency at the institution, more human resources are required. Minister Kairuki said that it is obvious that more officers for culture and tourism are required in order to meet the demands of the operational structures.
“Since there is a clear correlation between antiquities and tourism, tourist officials should not only stay in the national parks and reserves; it is preferable to have more officials at the museum as well.”
That, according to her, will help draw in more tourists.
In addition, the minister commended NMT for embracing technology, including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), which allow visitors to a museum in Dar es Salaam to view all seven national museums simultaneously.
Thus, she urged the NMT to continue making sure that museums are kept digitally in order to ensure that history is maintained and continues to be understood by more people.
Moreover, she added that NMT has begun to make sure people are allowed to create and operate private museums.
“We continue to work together, and we invite them to visit us, so that we can talk about how we can jointly preserve our customs, culture and history,” she noted.
Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Dunstan Kitandula said the aim of the visit is to learn about many elements of antiquities and their preservation, as well as to address the department’s problems and offer guidance on numerous matters.
“Being here has given us a genuine picture of the National Museum and has taught us many things that we previously didn’t know,” he said.
Speaking about the state of tourism at the particular museums, the NMT History Curator, Pius Gondeka, said that recently they attract more tourists because the tourism sector has received a big boost from President Samia, following her decision to feature in the Tanzania Royal Tour documentary.
