Opinions of Tuesday, 14 July 2015

Auteur: Christopher Jator

Attracting tourists by promoting sites

Feature Feature

Few Cameroonians take interest in knowing and visiting tourist sites in the country.

Savouring a leisure time, say on the fringes of the twin lakes of Kupe-Muanenguba, the waterfalls of Ekom Nkam or just having a look at the beautiful creatures in the Botanic gardens of Limbe and Mvog-Betsi, may be refreshing to the mind.

Many Cameroonians get a bit of the experience watching such beauties on popular TV channels like National Geographic, Animaux, NatGeo Wild. Others admire movie or musical backgrounds with natural attractions. Still many Cameroonians are yet to discover the rich tourist attractions around them and as well savour a more decent sense of pleasure.

Taking a pleasure jaunt to a tourist site may alleviate worries, boredom and stress. It is common today for people to limit such trips to nightclubs or spend honeymoons in hotels. It is in this area that the online booking portal, Jovago, has begun holding sessions with hotel managers in order to help them propose better services to promote Cameroon as a tourism destination. To begin with, Jovago is setting up an online data of Cameroon tourist sites at www.jovago.com.

Arthur Soria, Jovago’s Head of Sales in Cameroon, recently told reporters in Bonapriso, Douala, that he and his team are working with the present Miss Littoral and Miss West second runner-up, to locate tourist attractions in the Littoral and West Regions. “I chose to work in Cameroon because of the rich tourism potentials and as a tourism lover, I will want to see many Cameroonians become interested in tourism. One of the ways of doing this is to have an online data of tourism sites in the country, hold mind-changing sessions with Cameroonians, hotel managers and visitors to the country, to make use of them. Some 80 per cent of our clients are Cameroonians,” he revealed.

Attractions such as the Ekom Nkam Waterfall, Bandjoun Palace, the Bamoun King’s Palace, Wouri Beach, Mount Cameroon, flora gardens in Yaounde and beaches in Limbe and Kribi, as well as the Zoo-botanic garden in Mvog-Betsi and the Botanic Garden of Limbe, confirm Cameroon’s tourism endowment. Miss Littoral, Jessica Ngoua, and Miss West second runner-up, Kamako Ngondji Myriam, will help to locate the sites in their regions.