PS pushes for museums, antiquities marketing
PERMANENT Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources, Dr Hassan Abbasi has directed the National Museums of Tanzania (NMT) to strengthen preservation and promotion of museums and antiquities to ensure they are known nationally and internationally.
Dr Abbas made the remark yesterday during the meeting with the NMT management. The meeting that was held in Dar es Salaam was aimed at gaining a common understanding of the preservation and promotion of museums and antiquities in the country.
He said that the conservation work in museums and antiquities is a spiritual work that reminds humans where they came from and where they are going for the benefit of the current and future generations, adding that the issue of sustainable conservation and publicity is important.
“The direction of our ministry for this period and the future is the preservation and promotion of museums and antiquities so that citizens can know what we are in charge of,” Dr Abbas said.
He insisted that the NMT must consider the important issues of preservation and publicity while looking for resources and various experts capable of operating the museums and antiquities in the country.
Dr Abbas also commended the NMT for the preservation of heritage, urging the institute in collaboration with the Tourism Board to work to increase creativity in advertising and promoting tourism opportunities available in museums and antiquities.
Late January this year, NMT launched a programme of motivating university and college youths to promote cultural and heritage tourism.
The programme dubbed ‘Museum University Hub’ looks to compliment President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s effects of increasing tourism earnings for growing the economy and creating awareness to youths on their cultural heritage as one way of motivating while preserving cultural heritage sites in urban and rural areas.
NMT Senior Education Officer Ms Anamery Bagenyi said Dar es Salaam has the most cultural heritage sites with the huge untapped potential of attracting domestic and foreign tourists.
“This would inspire young people to be creative in preserving the sites, including marketing them for creating jobs while employing others,” said Ms Bagenyi over the weekend when guiding students from the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) in their tour of 100 cultural and heritage sites.
She said the city tour was aimed at making youths, who are the future tourist stakeholders, promote a narrative of viewing Dar es Salaam as a home of cultural heritage tourist sites.
Some of the areas toured by the UDSM students are cultural heritage including artifacts found within NMT premises, monuments, oldest buildings and sites, symbolic heritage like a monument, historic artistic, ethnological or anthropological and exploring the social ways of life.
Apart from conducting city tour, NMT also nurtures youth with the best tourism ideas on how they can go to the next step in tapping the potential from such cultural heritage sites and the ways of making them generate income.
