By Prince J Musa in Kenema
The National Tourism Board has on the 11th June 2021 ended a stakeholder’s engagement in the eastern region in a bid to identify potential tourism attraction sites within the region.
The engagement brought together owners of hotels, guest houses, restaurants, and entertainment centers. Commercial bike riders, drivers, petty traders, and artists were also in attendance.
The Marketing Manager National Tourism Board, Lucinda Kargbo said Sierra Leone has a lot of tourists attraction sites which makes the country unique but said over the years those sites were not well coordinated or managed to attract international attentions.
She said the Board was supported through the Sierra Leone diversification project which enables it to secure consultancy to produce the marketing and branding strategies for the tourism sector for which she said the consultant is currently in-country and has visited many sites including Tiwai Island where the Gola rainforest is.
Kargbo added that, the engagement will provide the opportunity to the eastern region on how they would like the tourism products such as their cultural heritage will be captured in to one document that will be owned by everybody.
One of the consultants, Dr. Mike Fabricius, said the essence of the stakeholder's engagement was to contribute to the development of the Sierra Leone marketing and branding document on tourism which will make the country special in terms of tourist attraction from other countries, and noted it was an opportunity to come up with innovative touristic sites that have not been explored by many.
Dr. Fabricius added that, Sierra Leone’s natural sites will only be known internationally when the people are willing and ready to accept tourism as a business that will contribute to socio- economic development.
He said the tourism industry should not only be owned by the government but by the people and promoted by them for their own benefit.
Speaking on behalf of the local authorities and councils in the east, the Deputy Mayor of Kenema City Council, Esther Nguanya Kaisamba thanked the Board for considering the regions to contribute to the national document instead of sitting in the capital and decide things for the provinces.
She said, touristic site is one thing that sells a country to other countries and therefore, as local council, they will be happy to see that tourism grow in Sierra Leone.
She added that one of the tourism sites which Kenema could be attributed to is the Kambui forest, which covers Kenema city and observed that before this time, a lot of species were in the Kambui forest especially the eagle bird from which the district football team derived its name “Kambui Eagles football club’’.
She assured of the commitment of the Kenema city council and the stakeholders of their continued support to national issues that facilitate development.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (16/06/21)
