Macfest kick-starts Saturday

Malawi will next week commemorate Tourism Week—taking off with the first ever Malawi Cultural Artist Festival (MacFest).

Running from Saturday to Sunday, the country’s music and dance culture will meet fashion, songs, film, music, poetry, theatre, visual arts and traditional children’s games during the festival at Civo Stadium and Crossroads Hotel’s Sapitwa Lobby.

This brings to life the K22 million (about $73 333) festival  that has been postponed three times since last year, leaving artists ruing lost revenue in form of the shows they had to cancel to accommodate the State-financed affair.

In an interview, Sosten Lingwalanya, deputy director of tourism responsible for marketing in the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, said the premier arts carnival will culminate into the start of the Tourism Week on Monday. The commemoration, ahead of the World Tourism Day on Thursday, aims to promote the county’s attractions.

Explained Lingwalanya on Monday: “The Ministry of Tourism and Culture does undertake a number of joint promotional, developmental aspects with members of the Travel Trade. At the heart of such promotions, however, would be continuous and projects to entice people to visit and for the industry to create incentives for travel.

 “The National Tourism week seeks to showcase the importance of tourism to the national economy and is guided every year by the theme set up by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).”

This year’s theme—Tourism and Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Energy—is very critical for the development of the country as well as the underexploited sector in a country riddled by intermittent energy supply. The 2008 census shows less than 10 percent of Malawi’s population have access to electricity.