Sana’a summer festival activities launched [Archives:2007/1069/Local News]
By: Moneer Al-Omari
SANA'A, July 18 ) Marked with huge attendance, the Tourism Promotion Authority launched the activities of the Second Sana'a Summer Festival on Monday evening. The festival aims to boost and promote the cultural tourism in Yemen as the country enjoys rich and diversified history stretching over 2000 years.
Tourism Minister Nabil Al-Faqih told media outlets that Sana'a festival is a massage of love and peace to the world, adding that similar festivals will be staged in other cities and governorates like Qarnaw festival in Al-Jawf, Al-Baldah in Hadramout, and the Tourism Festival in Ibb. He also added that these festivals are organized annually.
This year's festival is made open and free of charge before all. Families are allowed to attend the activities, which include cultural and sport activities, motor cycling and glider flying by French teams, together with folkloric and artistic shows to be presented by public bands from Hadramout, Sana'a and Tihama.
Moreover, the festival, due to be staged in Al-Sab'een Park, will comprise public sports, competitions, and dolls shows representing famous Yemeni personalities and kings, accompanied with cinematic shows for family, youth, and children. The Chinese team is going to make acrobatic shows and other activities.
Al-Faqih pointed out that such festivals come in line with the recent tendencies of tourism, wherein cultural heritage and specialty can be shown to the maximum, hinting that the cultural tourism has become popular nowadays.
He told the Yemeni News Agency, Saba, that these festivals aim to stimulate and activate the environmental and cultural tourism, as well, to encourage Gulf visitors, who represent the highest percentage of tourists over the few passing years, to come to the country. They also motivate Yemeni expatriates to visit their homeland and help the revival of the tourism in Yemen.
Furthermore, the different festivals held across Yemen will help alleviate and promote tourism especially after Mareb's recent terrorist operation that targeted an envoy of Spanish tourists and killed nine as well as two Yemenis. Some observers believe these festivals will make the wheel of tourism run again and give a further boost to tourism in Yemen.
Similar festivals:
For the first time, Dhamar local authority in collaboration with Tourism Ministry organizes Asa'ad Al-Kamel Festival which is due to be staged by the mid of the next month and it aims to promote tourism in Dhamar and further introduce the cultural heritage of the governorate before tourists from across the globe.
Similarly, Ibb will organize the fifth annual Ibb Tourist Festival by August 15. The festival shifts from place to place within the governorate in an effort to advertise and promote the tourism in the ever green governorate. The governorate was earlier declared by Yemeni officials as the tourist capital of Yemen.
Qarnaw Heritage and Cultural Tourism festival, which is conducted for the third time, will be staged in Al-Jawf in a few months. It is meant for promoting environmental tourism (Eco-tourism). Its events include camel, car and horse racings. Additionally, it provides an opportunity for mountain climbing and, further, archeological site-seeing in the area, which was the cradle and the capital for an old Yemeni kingdom.
The third festival is the Al-Baldah Tourism Festival, staged in Hadramout's Al-Mukalla. It is conducted annually and it is due to be launched on Tuesday, July 24. Worth-noting, it comprises many cultural, recreational, and artistic events. Senior poets and singers will participate in the events including Abdulrab Edris.
Still, there are other activities and festivals held across the Republic despite the fact that they do not come to the level of the aforementioned festivals which reflect the cultural heritage of each governorate.
——
[archive-e:1069-v:15-y:2007-d:2007-07-19-p:ln]
