Festivals seen as one way of boosting tourism

SMALL medium entreprise (SME) tourism festivals can generate considerable revenue with an attractive itinerary, a tourism promoter says.
SME Tourism board member and advocate Francis Steven said SME tourism was the way forward to keeping indigenous people occupied in villages and making living.
Steven was speaking at the first-ever Huon Gulf-Nawaeb SME Arts and Crafts Festival at Miles Lodge at 14-Mile outside Lae.
The event was theme “In partnership we achieve Vision 2050 through SME and good governance”.
It involved mothers and young men and women involved in carvings, bilums, baskets, clay pots, singsings, drama, horticulture, floriculture, photography and framing, painting, tapa cloth, head dresses and masks.
Miles Lodge owner Kwina Ambang challenged the Government to invest adequate funding in SME tourism programmes.
Ambang, in collaboration with Steven, Robert Tom and Pesa Takos hosted 20 SME groups on Saturday and Sunday.
“Morobeans can build and own hotels and motels and host tourists,” she said.
Women exhibitors’ representive Anna Wissink presented two bouquets to Ambang and Marilyn Saonu, wife of Morobe Governor Ginson Saonu, to cement the partnership with Miles Lodge to host the event annually.