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Business Reporter
THE Regional Tourism Organisation of Southern Africa (Retosa) says it has indefinitely postponed the Youth in Tourism Arts Festival and Conference that was slated for Malawi this week.The tourism body said in a statement yesterday that the dates for the event would be announced in due course.
“Retosa wishes to announce that the Youth in Tourism Arts Festival and Conference, planned to be hosted in Malawi on 12 and 13 December 2013 at the Bingu International Conventional Centre has been postponed.
“This was due to reasons beyond our control. Retosa will now run this event . . . at a date which will be communicated in due course,” it said.
However, Retosa said the inaugural Youth in Tourism Essay Competition which was supposed to run concurrently with the arts festival and conference was held in Walvis Bay, Namibia, on Friday last week.
The competition was held under the theme, “Turning Southern Africa into a Competitive Green Tourism Destination”.
Retosa said the essay competition has been running from August and the submission of entries closed last month.
The competition ran parallel with the Southern Africa Research Planners Conference in Namibia.
“Participants of the essay competition were drawn from the 15 Sadc countries namely Angola, Botswana, DR Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Those that qualified gave presentations on the topic: “What my government should do to turn my country into the best green tourism destination in the world”.
The objective of the competition includes facilitating the mainstreaming of tourism into the education system across the region as well as helping school children to understand all the natural and cultural tourism resources available, their value and contribution to the economy.
derick.khumalo