Luxury liner visits town to buzz with visKek

MADANG will be buzzing from activities and visitors on Sunday week when it hosts passengers from the luxury liner Silver Whisperer.
Tourist operator Sir Peter Barter, the main host of the 350 passengers from America and Europe, said yesterday that a two -hour multi-cultural event would be on display by the Divine Word University students on the day.
He said the ship would be out of the harbour by 3pm after   escorted sight-seeing trips to villages. There will be harbour cruises for them.
The liner is expected to arrive in the morning and passengers will be treated to a lunch of western and local cuisine or mumu.
Sir Peter said 10 cruise ships were scheduled to arrive in the province this year, an increase from previous years, but more needed to be done in house to attract overland tourists.
“Overland tourism is much more valuable than those coming on ships but various things contributing to the lack of a boom in this industry needs to be fixed. You can’t falsely sell a destination.
“The way of life in any village is the way we are. We make it a natural destination just by being the way we are, buai and all,” he said.
The Melanesian Tourism Services and Tourism Promotion Authority are working together to put PNG back on the map, Sir Peter said.
The Madang Visitors Cultural Bureau, a subsidiary of the Madang Development Corporation, the business arm of the Madang provincial government, has not received any support to help the development of tourism in the province.
Sir Peter said Milne Bay and East New Britain setups were more successful for tourism than Madang.
“We need the provincial government to seriously wake up and put money into developing tourism hot spots in the province so when such visitors come there is already something for to see and enjoy”, he added.