[Watch] NORTH WEST MEDIA LAUNCH AND TOURISM MONTH

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help paint a picture about everything that's going to be unfolding um today at the stone stonehenge uh river lodge yes the name gets me every time uh good morning welcome to ufm how are you good morning sweetness and good morning to your listeners at home yes um let's talk about today i mean of course the the environment is beautiful the energy is high people are looking lovely and bright you know everyone is excited what is the objective of today's launch okay before i start with the objective maybe just to give a little bit of background yes tourism september month is very important month for the tourism industry and it's the month in which we profile tourism as a economic sector yes especially in terms of its contribution to a job creation transformation and also a social cohesion so each and every year in september we undertake a series of activities and programs just to profile and also promote the sector so today's objective it's the tourism month media launch where we basically having a range of media houses um that we have invited yes um to have a speech from the mec in terms of tourism month but also to profile the region that we are in dr kkk the fredo photo yes as part of our hidden gems such that when we use platforms like yours the media you're able then to profile such pro products for viewers to know and be able to come and visit yes i think it's it's it's the most beautiful thing is that we get to like you were saying we get to move and we get to profile different districts like we are in doctor kkk today how is today's one how is today's or in fact this year's um heritage month tourism month different from the previous years okay um one thing that we have taken note of is that when one thinks of the northwest uh province as a tourism destination yes they think about milan is back they think about sun city they think about uh artephius and madiku so we took a conscious decision to say that part of this year's tourism month launch we will focus on our heating gems yes and federal food home is one of our hidden gems and i'm sure as we're driving through whether yesterday or this morning through the mountains i always called the federal ford our little own dragon's back absolutely because of the scenic views the mountains and so forth so these are the areas to say that in terms of our spread of tourism in the province yes these are the pockets of gems that we have and we wanted to profile them as such but also most importantly beyond the promotion and awareness is to also start to stimulate dialogue around the theme for tourism munch which is a very thinking tourism um and at the theme it's quite important when you look at the devastating impact of covet 19 on the industry the tourism industry was the first sector to open to close and the the last sector to open yes and that had a ripple effect on the livelihoods of of course of the tourism businesses and the employees so we are kick-starting various dialogues from a policy perspective from a business perspective and also from implementation perspective to say is at the industry how do we then respond to the various operating environment that we find ourselves including climate change issues of ict issues of health and so forth alrighty who are going to be the participants um taking part in all of today's festivities i can imagine uh there's a lot that's going to be happening i mean you also just briefly touched on of course the official launch the speech by um the mbc but what else can we anticipate and who is going to be participating so basically we have um the political leadership in terms of the mec giving an overview of yes and then welcome and then we have close to about 25 media houses that are hosted in the the event okay and we also have various tourism products that are situated uh in and around the front of a dome yes um so that you know there's that engagement and social interaction in terms of uh and also part of the um taking the program program forward there will be a media tour for two days okay close to the two days session all right we will be taking through the uh vera's sites more afraid of odomo than the various activities all right oh wow that is definitely exciting um and before i let you go as we wrap it up obviously tourism month is a long month what programs can we anticipate beyond everything that's going to be happening here um do you have any other programs in place for the month yes um in terms of time i'll just highlight two or three okay um we have the social tourism program so under this program we basically is a educational intervention that we have all right especially when you look at our our background as the previously disadvantaged tourism has largely been a foreign concept of course yeah so part of this social tourism program is to inculcate the culture of travel amongst the previously disadvantaged communities so we're looking at high school learners and students in university institutions and then we expose them to various tourism products such that they can start experiencing them as well we are also having a tourism month public lecture um in partnership with university of northwest where we will be tapping into the knowledge base of academia to unpack this concept of writing tourism beautiful and then we also working with our partner sectors especially the environment and the heritage sector whereby um we will be planting uh 4 000 indigenous trees across our various communities for abba month yes which is quite significant absolutely because it promotes the preservation of the environment indeed but also the beautification of our local communities such that you know when people start to visit you know things are beautiful and nice and clean and all those things absolutely and then we also having cleaning campaigns we are targeting various illegal dumping sites and areas uh places of interest where there's lead time stuff like that so that we clean them up so that when we offer the destination it's a safe and clean destination for tourists to come through and enjoy what we have to offer oh i love that i love that it encapsulates everything so beautifully there's that balance of you get to learn while you get to experience while you also get to clean up wonderful thank you so much sir um what a pleasure of course you do know that we are still coming to you live from the stonehenge river lodge i was just in conversation with um who's the director for tourism development of course um we are here with detect which is the department of economic development environment conservation and tourism 28